Over time we have seen many ordinary people respond to possibilities that have changed their lives and, in some instances, the lives of their community and nation.
We have all heard the stories of: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks - the list of ordinary people who dared is long and impressive.
However, reading their stories can be both inspiring and intimidating. It is easy to discount the possibility of us being heroes with: I am not them; I don't have that courage; or I don't have those kinds of opportunities where I live or in what I do. Being a hero is not my thing, I'm just a ... fill in the blank.
Yet as we look back on the events that led up to our current financial and economic crisis how many of us saw things that were clearly wrong, or at least suspect, and did not respond to the possibility of intervening? I know, with hindsight, I did not respond in instances where I could have.
The opportunities to be a hero are all around us. We may not make national TV or the history books, but we can be heroic nonetheless. For example, we see a friend or family member taking on financial commitments that they cannot sustain and we say nothing. We watch a TV ad that offers 3 months free that we know is a dishonest bait to switch to high monthly payments once a prospect is ensnared and we don't warn someone who wants to bite the bait, and we don't protest these dishonest practices.
How come? Well mostly because of what I call resignation. We have resigned ourselves to the fact that our intervention will not make any difference, "so what's the point?" The only answer that I think is worth while is that the point is that to be able to live with ourselves and stay healthy, we must act with integrity. Which simply means we must act consistently with our own principles and values - regardless of the outcome. It is that simple.
The price of doing otherwise is expensive in more ways that we see at first. For example, we as a nation, and in millions of cases individually, are now paying, and will be paying for some time to come, for all the instances we passed on being heroic and passed on acting with integrity.
For example, Rosa Parks may have ended up in jail, and certainly not in the history books, for refusing to go to the back of the bus. History books or not, her actions were heroic, not because of the outcome, but because she acted with integrity.
So a way to think of being a hero is to dare to respond, consistently with our principles and values, to a possibility bigger than ourselves. To respond even when the risk of failure, or resistance, or ridicule, is high. To respond even knowing that success is uncertain, even unlikely. To respond simply because we know it is the right thing to do.
