Hero

“What is hero?”

“What it takes to become one?“

“Am I prepared enough to be one?“

“Am I one?“

These are the questions I keep questioning myself ever since I was tiny child. Mainly inspired by the cartoon I used to watch in my childhood and in my teenage years memories such as following titles which give me the most impact on my personality such as The Last Airbender (FYI my first email have word airbender in it), Danny Phantom and Naruto. That’s why I concerned and still watch cartoon or story they feed up to our children, because they play a big roles in our child education and the growth of their personality. And I wondering why hero archetype often used in our education either formal or informal (folktales). What is the hero?

Most of us believed, hero is the chosen one. Nobody can’t be a hero, only the special with gifted with abilities or talent could be a hero. But I’m against to this idea because I want to become a hero that I wished to be. Saving the humanity. But how I could become hero if I don’t know what a hero is? How could I become a Muslim if I don’t know what Islam really is? How could I become a Mukmin if I don’t know what Faith is? How could I become Muhsin if I don’t understand what virtue really is? I suffered enough to find the hero within me. Yes. It exist, and so are you. Everyone have hero inside of them but nobody aware of it.

Hero is not about what superpowers you have. How many people you have saved, or what people have calls on you. Hero is more on journey and known to yourself only rather than a title that you hold for yourself Only the hero know the other hero. If you save someone, you are a savior. If you provide to your family, You are just the provider even though your child might see you as hero for them because we use word hero as a title for achievement and it is normal for masses glorified their savior, leader, or even messiah as their hero. But, what is hero?

There is book in my possession called “The Hero’s Journey” by Joseph Campbell who write down to us the pattern of hero archetype. It started with “the calling” and it happen (or will happen) to all of us, and it up to us to decide either to pickup the call or not. But it is not a luxury for the chosen ones like most prophet since they need to play their role’s. That’s why we rarely called the prophet and messenger of god as hero despite most of them experienced the similar pattern including the Call. However, not all have same calling that shares the same level of novelty and dramas. Some might need to slay the dragon while some may only need to slay the snakes, and some might not need to do anything. Like most women’s calling may be of her proposal to marriage and conceiving the child which happen the most for normal people even for a man. Then, you might wonder “Am I hero now?”. My answer will be — you could.

Like I said, hero is more on journey. And every journey comes with preparation. Like your marriage, it comes with preparation even though you might never ready for it. And the biggest preparation you need to make is to accept the calling. Are you willing to sacrifice your status quo and go to a journey? It take an attitude of gamble to your destiny or if you are religious person, I could rephrase it: it require your act of faith. What is act of faith? To simplify it, you don’t know but you trust it (believing is not enough). So either way, gamble or an act of trust is something we fear to do. If you went to a certain journey without this experience on fear to “gamble” your destiny or requires an act of faith at the beginning. You never begin. Heroic journey requires a leap of faith.

But should you gone down to this path of hero? The real question, would you? In the end, it up to us – whether to stay in your status quo or grow up!

Imagine you will be dead tomorrow, there is no day except now. What would you spend your lives so before sleep at night, with no regret.