My best
friend (fairly) recently adopted a new motto for her life. “Don’t be a hero.”
She and
I are a lot alike in that we try to be everything to everybody. We never say “no”
to anything and we’re not very good at saying “no more” when something else
gets piled on top of our already full plates. We just scoop other things to the
side in order to make room. Or we try to find a bigger plate.
You need
something done? We’ll do it. Doesn’t really matter what it is. We’ll do it. So
we can be everything to everybody. Is it some kind of complex that we both
suffer from? I don’t know. Maybe. But what it really boils down to is that we
just want to help. We want to make sure we’re doing our part when it comes to
establishing who we are, we want to leave no stone unturned. So we do. And we
do. everything. that’s asked of us. And when we’re done with that? We do more.
We want
to be everything to everybody. DO everything for everybody. Be the hero in
every situation. The one that’s always there. Always willing. Always exceeding
expectations. The hero of every story.
It may
not seem like a bad trait to have and if we’re being honest, I think it has
gotten us both relatively far in our professional lives and social statuses.
But I think we’re both discovering that it hasn’t been beneficial to our own
personal lives. To our own well-being. We end up running ourselves ragged.
Sacrificing our own satisfaction and happiness for the benefit of others. We
pour everything we have into everybody else. Leave justenough for our family and close friends. And ourselves? Well,
you can just forget about THAT completely.
Hence her
new motto of “don’t be a hero”. It’s essentially her way of taking her life
back. To stop the continuous motion of trying to be everything to everybody. To
DO everything for everybody. To stop sacrificing her own life to be someone else’s
hero. And while I support her motto and agree with her logic behind it 100% and
recognize the usefulness and applicability it has to my own life, I think it’s
important to take it one step further. To be YOUR OWN hero.
There
have been a lot of instances in my life – especially recently – that I have
done things solely because “no one else is going to want to do it.” No one else
including me. But for whatever reason I feel some sort of obligation to be the
one who takes the bullet. Always. The hero who saves everybody else from having
to dodge the bullet. But the more I do it, the more I realize that I’m not
bulletproof. And I CAN’T be the hero all. the. time. For everybody.
Being the
hero and taking the bullets often comes at a price. That price being my own
happiness. My own sanity. My ability to fight for myself. And my ability to be
the hero of my own story. And if we’re not our own heroes, then who are we?
Because, let’s face it, there is not a single other human being on this planet
who can be our hero. We are our own best advocates when it comes to anything in
life. We know what we need. Mentally. Emotionally. What we need in order to be
happy. To be the heroes in our own lives.
Be your
own hero. Fight for yourself. For your own dreams. For your own goals. For your
own ambitions. And if you’ve got energy left over to devote to being other
people’s hero, go for it. But always first for yourself first. Advocate for
yourself first. Be. your own. hero. First. Always.
