Heroes: becoming inspiring individuals

In my last post I speak about the true heroes, those unsung heroes that help an old lady cross the street, pick up that bit of garbage and light a candle in someone's darkness. Today's blog is an attempt to empower people to go out and be a hero.

In response to my last post my girlfriend told me she's been a hero today. Across the street from her there's a supermarket that always has a lot of empty beercans lying around. Some presumably homeless people hang out there and leave their can's lying around. Today she walked past it as she always does on the way to doing the groceries, and instead of just passing them by, she went and picked them up and put them in the garbage bin. I'm proud to have inspired such an act of heroism.

Calling it heroism may seem overdone, but I believe it is the right and proper term. It takes courage and determination to change your own behavior. It means you have to change your own perception, refuse to think of problems as unsolveable and to be committed to making a difference in the world. Calling it heroism may however makes the task at hand seem difficult. As if you have to do something really special and unique to be a hero.

A hero, in my definition is someone who doesn't let an opportunity to make a difference go unnoticed. They pay attention to what is going on around them and help whenever they can. My girlfriend in the above example has probably walked past those cans a dozen times at least, perhaps even hundreds of times. However, today she saw them in a different light and made a choice to do something about it.

This kind of behavior is different and gets noticed, and when it does it's contagious. I remember one night at Carnaval, walking from the trainstation to my girlfriends home. In the south of our country Carnaval is celebrated with as much joy and noise as it is in Rio, and my girlfriend lives in the south. It was quite a new experience for me, all these people all dressed up, walking from bar to bar, singing and having a good time. I noticed however that some vandal had pushed a number of bicycles over, so that they lay in the road. The inebriated crowd was walking by them, but I could see that it was only a matter of time before they'd be falling over them or maybe treading on them, either breaking their necks or breaking the bicycles.

So my girlfriend and I picked up the first bike we saw and leaned it against the buildings on the side. There were at least 7 bikes that were similarly thrown about and it looked like a daunting task when a man in a pigsuit cheered at us. He told us: "I saw you put that bike upright! Good going ladies, that's what the world needs, people who care". He helped us lean the rest of the bikes against buildings and lampposts and told us about Carnaval in years gone by when of course "everything was better and people really cared". We made his night and he made ours.

That's the random acts of kindness that I believe are truely heroic. And aside from making a difference they also make you feel good about yourself! It's fun to look at the world and look for small ways in which you can improve it, right here and right now. So I propose we start a movement: the RAK-movement. RAK meaning: Random Acts of Kindness. It's easy and anyone can do it. But just to get you started and to inspire others: let's keep a tRAK-record. Let me know what RAK you did today!


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On being human: The case for mediocrity

Good and Evil

"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing"
Edmund Burke.

Evil came into my life early in the form of a child molester who abused me for 9 years. I experienced first hand the truth of the statement by Edmund Burke. In the nine years I was abused I'm sure some people must have seen something strange going on with me. I have no memory of anyone ever acting on my behalf thought. Instead, I was scolded for the way I acted out, told I was lazy and a rebellious teen.

In coming to terms with the experience of evil so early in life, I've thought a lot about good and evil. It has made me very aware that I have a choice, at any moment, to commit evil (by act or ommision) or good. I learned the truth of Alexandre Soltjzenitzyn's statement:

"The line between good and evil runs through the heart of every human being"

It's a moral choice whether you do good deeds or evil deeds.

Conformity experiment
That moral choice isn't as easy to make as it might seem: most of us are easily influenced by peer pressure. In the famous Asch experiment of conformity a full 75% of the people tested at least once gave a wrong answer when everyone around them gave the wrong answer. The question was: which of these lines on the right is of equal length to the one left, A B or C? Not hard to answer that one is it? In fact, without peer pressure only 1 person out of 35 tested ever got it wrong. When everyone around them gave the wrong answer however, 75% failed to give the right answer.

What's true for factual matters is probably double true for matters dealing with right and wrong. Given a situation where you perceive yourself to have no choices, where someone in authority is taking responsibility for your actions, and peer pressure to conform is high, you too might commit attrocities, like them poor soldiers in Abu Grahib. There but for the grace of God go I. An inconvenient truth? Yes. Can we escape it? Maybe.

In no way do I excuse people for the evil deeds they commit, I solidly believe in personal responsibility. However I also believe that there is no such thing as an evil person. Every one of us has a potential for good AND evil. Circumstances may call forth one or the other. The only thing we have to assist us in doing good is making a moral choice.


The hero's choice
A very simple example is littering. Interesting study done about that shows that when a street is very clean you don't normally litter, although about 10% of the people do anyway. If the street is very dirty, 90% of the same people just add to the mess. You have a moral choice:

• You can put your own litter in the appropriate bin.
• You can drop your litter as you go.

Then there is also the hero's choice:

• Clean your entire street of litter and engage in a community program to keep it clean.

What we need in order to escape from the risk of us becoming the very monsters we fear, is everyday heroism. We need to celebrate the everyday hero that helps an old lady with her groceries. The hero that helps you pick up your papers when you drop them. The kind of hero that doesn't stand idly by when something bad happens, but goes into action when it counts. Every day we have a chance to be the hero that we are. All we have to do is be on the lookout for it.

So ask yourself at the end of every day:

"Did I have a chance to be somebody's hero today? Did I grab the chance?"