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Jan 21, 20186 min read

How to be a Hero | Yinka Aresa

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Too many times when we switch on our televisions, listen to the radio, or pick up a newspaper, all we are bombarded with are the endless tragedies occurring globally. We hear of the notorious terrorist, and ask ourselves how can someone be so heartless, so evil? We hear of tyrants using their power to limit and squash the inferior man, and yet again we ask ourselves how someone can be so selfish and manipulative, so inconsiderate? But we never hear about the good that is achieved. And so, it becomes hard to believe that there can be so much evil without any good. It is a well-known fact that good and evil must co-exist for the world to be balanced – take Ying and Yang as evidence. The darkness and the light continue to follow each other without taking over one another. However, from reading and watching the news, it is worryingly easy to lose hope in humanity and believe that evil dominates our world.

In reality, this observation is completely the opposite. There is so much good in the world, that when we take a second out of our busy schedules to look around us and appreciate the little things, we just might see it. There are people willing to risk their own lives to save that of a stranger, and people who would suffer alone in order to see someone else smile. We call these people heroes. They may not be heroes in terms of red capes, bat-mobiles, super human strength, night vision or great archery skills but they are heroes because they showcase and radiate the good in the world. They are heroes because they inspire, give hope to anyone who is looking, and finally, because they are selfless. When we see people like this, it begs to question what makes some people good, and others bad?

The answer to this question, if you ask a philosopher, will be a compilation of confusion and reflection because, just as it is hard to suggest a plausible reason for why some people are heartless and evil, it is difficult to identify exactly what makes someone good. Instead of asking why, we should ask how can one be good. How can a person be a hero?The Carnegie Hero Fund is an incentive in Canada, set up in the early 1900s, that finds and awards heroes. The fund recognises individuals who perform extraordinary acts of heroism in everyday life in the United States and Canada, and provide financial assistance for the disabled and those that have attempted to save others. The fund has a set of criteria that they use to assess the people that are considered for the award.

For those aiming to achieve heroic characteristics, analysing the funds criteria is a good way to compare it to our own lives and attitudes. They define a hero to be: “A civilian who voluntarily leaves a point of safety, exerts themselves, risks their own lives to an extraordinary degree in an attempt to save someone else’s lives”. The reward for the fulfilment of this criteria is a physical award, alongside a scholarship of $5,000. Every single year, this fund has to reassess their criteria of what constitutes a hero as, contrary to popular opinion, there are millions of people who risk their own lives daily for a complete stranger.

Laura Shrike is a prime example for a worthy candidate of this award. In 1995 as a 21 year old college student she was driving through the country when she saw a woman being attacked by a bull. She immediately got out of her car and shouted to the lady, asking if she was okay. The scene she was faced with a woman on the ground with a 900 pound bull was on top of her. She saw the woman struggling but there was an electric fence between the scene and herself. Laura had two options, she could either go forward through thousands of volts of electricity towards an angry bull that could maul her to death or she could just stay safe. Laura decided to save a life. She jumped through the electric fence and ran towards the lady and the bull. A neighbour came out and handed a large pipe to Laura, which she used to strike the bull repeatedly until it became distracted, allowing the lady to escape. That was the point, Laura Shrike became a hero.

Another example is William Pennle, who is the 8,067th person to receive the award in 1999. He was in bed sleeping when his wife heard a crash. He woke up to the sound of a dog barking and crashes. They both ran to the front of their home to discover that his car had crashed into a utility pole. Inside the car were three teenagers. William had responded to the accident in nothing but sweatpants. Just like Laura, he had two choices: he could either do nothing and let the teenagers die or he could risk his own life. He reached into the blazing car and dragged the first two teenagers out by the chest and just when he thought it was over, a neighbour screamed out that there was one more. Immediately he ran back to the car, now engulfed in flames, but the third person was stuck in the vehicle. The tyres were being destroyed and the interior of the car was melting onto his back. He screamed to his neighbours for someone to help but no one did. With some struggle, he pulled the third teenager out and he became a hero.

When these two individuals were asked on why they decided to risk their lives for strangers, neither had a clear answer. Their answers varied from “I did what any responsible person would have done” to “My daughter was a teenager at said time and I just hoped that if the tables were turned someone would do the same for her.” This may not exactly fit the criteria needed to be a hero, but it does showcase one type of hero: those who are willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to save a complete stranger. Critical roles in society showcase their competence at heroism time and time again. For example: doctors, teachers, friends, and so many more people are heroes – it only takes a second to look around us to realise that we are surrounded by them.

The Brixton Soup Kitchen was set up in January 2013 by Solomon Smith & Mahamed Hashi, who are perfect examples of selfless individuals. The two social workers realised exactly how deprived their community was, and instead of simply complaining or waiting for someone else to do something, they decided to do something critical and impacting. They wanted to help their community, they wanted to help the homeless sleeping on the cold floors of the cold streets on the cold nights, they wanted to be the positive change in their community, and that’s exactly what they became. Solomon and Mahamed are heroes as they are not saving lives physically like Laura and William, but they are touching several people’s lives with support. They help us to understand another type of hero, heroes that are the light in other people’s lives – individuals who are present in the darkest of times. The idea of serendipity comes to mind because, when we are all placed under circumstances, then we can all evolve into heroes.

To answer the original question of “How can a person become a hero?”: Start with the intention to be selfless and helpful in any way. A good analogy is learning how to dunk a basketball: every time you try to dunk, but make a mistake, failure may be daunting and get in the way of progress. This is a declarative explicit task, when the hippocampus communicates with the frontal cortex, reminding you of all the mistakes you’ve faced, until one day you just stop thinking about it, and you can finally achieve the dunk. At this point, it stops being a declarative explicit task and now is an implicit procedural task.

So we can all be heroes; we are all surrounded by heroes, and all you need to do is look around to see who the heroes in our lives are. Is it the teacher who continues to believe in you when no one else does? Is it your parents who continue to sacrifice their own happiness for your own happiness? Is it your friend who goes out every Thursday to feed the homeless? Or maybe it’s the stranger that smiles to you on your journey every day. We are surrounded by heroes who can teach us how to be a hero.

Who are the heroes that surround you, and what lessons do they have to teach you?

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