Who is your hero?

Growing up, I heard this question every now and again at school assemblies, from coaches, my church group, my own parents. When asked, “Who is your hero?” my younger self never quite knew how to respond. 

“Who is my hero? There’s got to be someone, Lucas.”

The truth is there wasn’t. At least not in the way that you may be thinking. 

As is the case for most of us, answering this question increases the pressure to have this role model -  the ideal example already present in our life for us to be able to look up to and model the life of success. 

So many people easily misconstrued this term with the then perceived pressure to have someone in life that you look up to. 

That is important, however, as not everyone has that example, in the concrete that is. 

What really lies at the heart of the question, “Who is your hero?” 

Who Do You Want to be vs What Do You Want to do?

Our culture finds itself on this ever-revolving hamster wheel, constantly asking ourselves the questions:

What do I want to do?

What job should I look into?

What do I want to study? 

The barrage of questions goes on and on. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe we are asking the wrong questions? 

Maybe, just maybe.

If so, where do we begin? 

Let’s start here: Who do you want to be?

The Importance of Archetypes 

You have to figure out who you want to be in this world. That does not mean you must figure out what you want to do. 

What we do is simply a vehicle to becoming the man or woman God has created us to become. 

Most people too quickly conflate who you want to be with what you will spend your life doing. They aren’t synonymous, nor can you put the cart before the ox on this one.

To identify the “who” means to highlight the character traits that you want to embody.

They don’t just appear either. We see them in others, and then adopt them ourselves.

That is where the importance of archetypes come into play. 

“An archetype is an idea, symbol, pattern, or character-type, in a story. It's any story element that appears again and again in stories from cultures around the world and symbolizes something universal in the human experience.”

A perfect example of this in our culture is pretty much any superhero movie ever, one of my personal favorites being Spiderman. 

Here you have a teenage kid, Peter Parker. Small in stature, pretty insignificant, yet a whiz kid. 

Peter‘s life was marred by incredible academic success, making him the ideal victim of the school bully, Flash Thompson. Yet, he didn’t allow this to stop his ever-growing infatuation with the most beautiful girl in school, Mary Jane Watson. 

One day, Peter’s life forever changed upon being bitten by a radioactive spider, giving him spider-like superpowers. 

The story continues with Spiderman’s embracing of the responsibility of having these extraordinary powers, while simultaneously continuing to live the life of a normal 16-year-old kid. 

I don’t know about y’all, but this character always gets me fired up for life. 

Why? 

Because I see this young kid who rises to the occasion of circumstances he had forced upon him, to defend those he loves and a city that is depending on him.

It’s Spiderman’s character that does the talking above everything else. 

I firmly believe that it is archetypes such as Spiderman that give a culture like ours exactly what so many people lack in their own lives: an example of who we want to truly become.

So once again I ask you, “Who is your hero?”

As Catholics, and all Christians for that matter, we need not look any further than Our Lord, Jesus Christ, for the “ideal Archetype.”

The Ideal Archetype

“I came that you may have life & have it abundantly.” John 10:10

Stop and ponder on this verse for a moment. Take a moment and recognize all of the many ways that Our Lord seeks to keep up His end of the bargain. 

Firstly and supremely, Jesus gives us His body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist. Along with all of the sacraments, that we may become “another Christ; that we may have His life within us! 

Secondly, and one that gets to the heart of my point, Jesus gave us an example to follow. 

This is one of the many ways the mystery of the Incarnation rocked all of human history. 

We received the prototype of archetypes if you will. All the best that being human has to offer, embodied by a man who also happens to be the second person of the Holy Trinity. 

With that, the lives of the saints follow suit as important examples of men and women who embody those characteristics that you and I, as Christians, seek to emulate.

All this being said, what does this mean for us? What must we do?

Moving Forward

Step 1: Stay close to the sacraments. Period. 

Step 2: Create a mental picture of that hero archetype of the desired self you have in mind. 

Seriously. Visualize it. 

Use that gift of your imagination to truly imagine who you could, and will, become. 

Here are some questions that may help prompt your reflection:

What are their characteristics? 

How based on this mental picture, will you seek to emulate the life of Christ on a character level?

Who do you want to be? 

Lastly, write it all down. Put these images to memory and paper. 

Life has a knack of tearing us down to the point that we lose sight of where we are going… and most importantly who we are becoming. All the more reason for us to be sure we keep these ideals at the forefront. 

Brothers and sisters, who do you want to be? Hopefully, at this point in the article, you know not to misconstrue this question with the subconscious “what do I want to do.” 

Because if we get this question wrong, we will be lost. Truly. 

However, if we get this right. If you and I dedicate ourselves to becoming who God truly is calling us to be, you will become the hero that others look to emulate.