Reach For the Hero in You

Hero in You

Do you think that heroes are super humans are found only in comic books? And that maybe you lead too mundane a life and have such a drab existence that disqualify you from being a hero? Is there a hero in you? Allow me to break the myth and tell you a story.

This is a true story of courage, grit and determination. These are sometimes found in situations where hopes are gone and death seems imminent . . . yet somewhere along the line, the most ordinary of people find the most extraordinary courage and become heroes.

Hero – True Story

On December 9, 2011, in the wee hours of the morning, a hospital in the city of Kolkata, India, had caught fire. As the fire burned its way first through the basement, and then through the ground floors, and the toxic fumes found air conditioning pipelines and vents to then travel to the upper floors, only one thing was clear: the firefighting strategy of the hospital failed.

It was then that the neighborhood people of a next-door slum, took an incredible step. They organised teams of volunteers, and—untrained though they were—they literally conducted firefighting and rescue operations! They broke through the walls in the perimeter of the burning hospital. They broke open the glass facade of the building. They even evacuated the patients through the windows of this multi-storied inferno.

So when you feel like hope is gone, look inside you and be strong, And you’ll finally see the truth, that a hero lies in you. ~ Mariah Carey (Tweet this)

Small bands of poor, illiterate people formed an extraordinary rescue team, to wade through the dark smoky corridors of the building, searching every room for survivors.

The fire had claimed around 90 lives (at the time of writing this article) of the 160-bed hospital, but many of the survivors are alive today because of the nameless group who worked in silence.

There is a hero in you. Heroes are in every one of us. For every kindness you show and every sacrifice you make, you become a hero to someone. Heroes are not somehow more elite, they are just people who show hope where there is none, and set out a path of self-sacrifice to achieve a goal, when nothing else seemed to work.

So what makes ordinary people—people like you and me—rise above the circumstances and become a hero? Lets see if there is a hero in you!

Steps to find the hero in you

Know that it’s your choice

It’s all about choice, the choice to do something, thinking beyond one self and one’s personal safety. Doing something which is routine, part of your job description, and something you had no choice but to do, is not part of a heroic activity.

So a pilot who flies a plane to safety out of a storm, is only doing his job; but an ordinary man who leaves his work to help out a person in distress, is more a hero than many others.

Follow your heart

Heroism isn’t about holding on to your beliefs and societal norms. When you do something instinctively for someone else, you are a hero, even if your reasoning tells you otherwise. You are a hero because you chose to follow your heart, and went ahead to assist someone else under extraordinary circumstances.

Go beyond your line of duty

When 48-year old waiter of Japanese restaurant Wasabi by Morimoto of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, Thomas Varghese, guided the guests at the restaurant to escape a terror attack, he stayed back to be the last one to leave.

He never got out alive, in the terrorist attack on the hotel on November 26, 2008. Leading the guests and other staff members to safety, he had gone way beyond his job description, and thereby, beyond his line of duty. He is one of the many ordinary men who became extraordinary heroes that day.

Conclusion – Hero in You

There’s something incredibly inspiring about stories of the common man becoming a hero. Such stories make us go that extra mile to acknowledge greatness in our fellow human beings, force us to stop looking at the world in terms of profit and loss, or even logic and rationality of ideas.

It’s actually a small decision in a life-changing experience, that we get to make only once a lifetime, which can turn us into heroes. So go ahead, take the step, and discover the real hero in you.

If this post has inspired you, you may be interested in this book, written by our Editor-in-Chief. It will absolutely change your life—if you let it!

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About the Author

Moumita Basu is a writer and a soft-skills trainer. She works for a news agency. When not writing, she loves spending time with her family, reading and travelling, preferably doing all three together.

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