What makes a hero?

Teenagers are wonderful.

Sandwiched between their childhoods and their careers, they happily live their days as their choices take them.
Some of them know exactly where they're going.
Some of them don't, but either way it doesn't really matter.
As a teacher, I know that the most important thing is that they follow their hearts and discover pathways that make them happy.
Because as cheesy as it sounds, our hearts often know where we're going, even when we don't... kinda like a GPS for life! (Except maybe a little more reliable.)

Somewhat recently, when I was teaching in an all-boys school, I asked a class of grade 9's to write a short story. It could be about anything, but needed to have at least 3 unbelievable things happening in it.

I found it interesting how a lot of the stories were very similar, and there were a couple of ideas that were consistent with approximately 70-80% of the class:

- The hero was always male.
- The hero was always really tall and extremely good looking.
- The hero was almost always capable of great physical acts of strength, such as possessing the ability to run and swim all the way around the world, or the ability to lift up people's houses with one hand (this was almost always one of the 'something unbelievable' elements of the story').

It makes sense that the main character would be male. They were boys after all, and this kind of character would be someone they'd be more likely to relate to. But tall, strong and good-looking? Reading these stories, these were overwhelmingly considered the ideal characteristics for a main character.

It got me thinking about how, from such a young age, these are the first things people seem to think of when imagining a hero. No one thinks of a short, nerdy fellow, who's never so much as set foot in a gym! Which I think is a little sad, because not everyone is tall or muscley or what society deems as 'extremely good looking'...
That doesn't mean they're not special.
That doesn't mean they can't change the world.
Actually, when you think about it... it doesn't really mean anything. At all.

So what is a hero?

This is one of those things that means something different to everybody, and this is fine.
But I like to think that one day in the future, children will grow up understanding heroism to mean something different to 'superman'.
They won't imagine someone tall, dark and handsome, but someone kind.
Someone who is steadfast in their beliefs.
Someone loving and respectful to everyone they encounter in life.
Someone who outlines the silver-linings of every cloud and spreads seeds of joyfulness and positivity in peoples minds.
Someone with a beautiful heart and character.

Because, when it comes to striving towards an ideal, who someone is on the inside is SO much more important than how they are physically.

And everyone as the potential to do great things, they just need to believe in it.