Be the Hero of Your Own Story

Most of us recognize a hero’s story when we hear it. We feel elated when we glimpse full human potential.

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You Are My Hero

There are clues everywhere. The clues are left for you to find by those who have earned the right to share the story — perhaps a great filmmaker, author, or a grandparent. This story can’t be told directly. Only through hints, analogies, and examples is the critical information received. And only through slow repetition is it fully absorbed. Most of us recognize a hero’s story when we hear it. We feel elated when we glimpse full human potential. Or, if we have come to a place of great psychological pain or confusion in our lives, the story may be met with revulsion and hopelessness. Our receptiveness changes, the story does not.

You might be expecting me to expound upon some religious doctrine or philosophy at this point but that is not what I’m on about. You might receive a critical insight just as easily from a professional wrestler as from the Dalai Lama. Religion is only one of a myriad of methods for revealing the map to a well lived life. Some of these methods can be used as life’s cheat sheet. However, if you only use the crib and don’t really know the source material, your understanding will be superficial at best, perverted and distorted in the worst cases. I’m talking about finding the courage to be your best self.

Who are the Heroes?

Heroes are nothing special. The second you start to believe that they are you have lost the vital wisdom that allows you to be one. A hero is someone who lives up to their full positive potential. Everyone has this capability. You don’t need a high IQ, sex appeal, or a fat bank account to succeed. In fact, having an enviable trait might get in the way. If you have made mistakes in your life, that’s good news. Pain and suffering makes you compassionate and heroes have compassion.

Every heroic story is different. In my story, the protagonist has many interesting life experiences, absorbs these experiences, and relays them to others in an inspiring way. In your story, the protagonist might spend his whole life mastering one skill — a skill that gives him purpose and fulfillment. Who is this central character, this hero? It’s you and the story is your life.

The Big Picture

Forget about the five year plan right now. It’s not important if you want to own a large home or be promoted to the director of your department in the future. It’s not even important if you already are a movie star, the CEO of a large company, or the best chef in the world. Jump to the very end. Imagine your death. What would be said about you? Imagine your elegy. When you reach your end, will you be satisfied by the way you lived?

Would you like to be someone who helped others? Someone who loved well and was well loved? In this imagining, were you inspiring? Were you a wonderful parent? Were you an innovator? Did you teach? Did you make the world around you beautiful?

Don’t worry about measuring up to someone else’s standards. You may be on to something important if your kids think you’re a great parent, your boss thinks you’re a great employee, or your commanding officer thinks you are a great solider. Then again, you might have found something false. What someone else thinks is ultimately unimportant. Don’t sacrifice your true values to satisfy others. That’s a false path. What matters is what you believe in.

If the story you want to tell is unconventional, have faith. The majority might be against you but it’s the hero’s job to press on and follow her heart. Only you can look inside and discover the map.

Yes, go ahead and get that next degree or land that big job. Sure. But do not forsake the big picture. If your eyes are only on the next gain and not on telling the greatest story that you can, you will ultimately be disappointed.

Find Your Values

There are a lot of twists and turns when it comes to discovering what you value. No one can tell you what your values are. This is where a lot of hard work comes in. Who are you? What is your story? This is where most people go to the crib sheet. Do yourself a favor, don’t go for shortcuts or cheats here. You might value what your society or community does, you might not. Do the work. Find out.

Here are some hints. If by pursuing your story you are inflicting real harm on yourself or others, it is a false value. If you are pursuing a story solely to bring pleasure to yourself or others, it’s false. To the contrary, a story that solely avoids pain or protects others from pain is false too. The rest is yours to figure out.

Fearlessness

Fearlessness doesn’t mean walking around alone in a dangerous neighborhood at night. It doesn’t mean setting sail in 40 knot winds and 12 foot seas because you are bored in port. These are examples of stupidity not fearlessness.

Fearlessness is having faith in what you believe. If you avoid judgment, embarrassment, or criticism, you will never live up to your heroic potential. Fearlessness is a bit of a misnomer. It doesn’t mean “without fear”, it means overcoming it and doing the right thing.

Take this article for example. Did I question whether I should publish an article telling people how to lead a good life? Of course I did! A whole barrage of self criticisms occurred to me. People might not like what I’m saying or think I’m a hypocrite. It might be over simplified or too esoteric. I might be embarrassed. I might lose people who read my blog. These are all fears. They might be justified or they might not be. It doesn’t matter. I believe in what I’m saying so I overcame these fears and said it. That’s fearless and that’s heroic.

Love

The final ingredient in the hero’s story is love. I’m not talking about conventional or romantic love although these are wonderful to have too. I like the mundane kind of love. It’s great. But no, you can be a hermit on the top of the tallest mountain, no wife, no children, but with universal love in your heart and that’s a hero’s love. On the other hand, you might wander the world having truly selfless and loving relationships with 10,000 people, that’s a hero’s love. On the other, other hand you might have a wife and two children and live in the suburbs while cultivating infinite compassion and that is a hero’s love.

Whatever you do, do it with love. If love is missing, your story will be an unhappy one. Love those close to you. Love those far away. Love people you have never met and will never meet. Find your values. Be fearless. Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s all small stuff. And be the hero of your own story.

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About Sandwich:

Currently, I sail full time on my 47 foot ketch Hanuman with my loving soon-to-be husband Fuego and my son Buck. We are on our way around the world with extended stops here and there. This is a leap of faith. We expect this journey will take us many years to complete, and when it’s done, we may just start all over again.

In a previous life I have been many things, including an art school dropout and a runaway punk rocker on the streets of San Francisco in the 80's. I also worked at Burning Man where I met my fiancé, and owned 12 Galaxies, one of the hippest nightclubs in America in the early 00’s. Other incarnations were a principal dancer, an internet front end developer, and founder of Yoga Mob, a yoga organization that pioneered donation based wellness services in America.