The Hero

The Hero

Written by Cassia Sherrill

Life’s not easy.

It’s full of stress.

All-consuming stress.

Sometimes there’s so much stress on you that you feel like there is a weight

On your chest that you are stuck under.

There will be some days that you will just want to quit resisting gravity

And let the weight crush you.

I know because today…I had one of those days.

Nothing I did seemed to be right.

Nothing was going right.

Everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong…all at the same time.

In slow motion, seemingly, nonetheless.

Stress level…now out the roof.

Yet somehow,

With hands shaking and heart pounding, you still manage to dig out.

It was no easy task.

It took a little while,

But everything eventually straightened out.

Whew! Praise the Lord!

My heart rate is finally coming back around to a normal pace,

And my stress level is balancing back out.

You would think people would notice the hard work you had just accomplished, right?

They would give you a pat on the back and say, “Great job there!

You handled all that stress with poise,

And you really deserve a round of applause!”

And then everyone would start applauding you

And giving pats on the back with enthusiastic, “Great job”’s along with it!

Ha! Yeah right…maybe in a perfect world!

Unfortunately, we don’t live in that perfect world that we’d all really adore!

We live in this fallen world.

Where the hardest workers get overlooked,

The heroes get mocked,

The underdogs stay under,

And the applause never comes to those who truly deserve it.

Sometimes, when you are looking at the sad reality of these simple facts,

It makes it hard to get out of bed

And put yourself through all that torture all over again.

Why bother?

Well, as hard and as frustrating as all this might be, we’ve gotta get up.

We have got to get dressed and ready to live another day.

Why is probably the question you are asking right at this moment.

Because what would life be without the hard workers?

Without the heroes?

Without the underdogs?

And the little unsung successes of our everyday lives?

We need these people to keep on.

The people mentioned above (the heroes, the underdogs, hard workers),

They are the ones that drive ordinary people to be extraordinary.

When you were little, you probably wanted to be a hero, am I right?

Now I highly doubt as a kid you dreamed of being an underdog

Or an unsung success…unless you were just a weird kid.

Here’s the magical part of it all.

The hero probably started as an underdog, as most of them do.

The hero had so many successes that went unsung

Because at the time, he was a hard working underdog whom nobody paid any mind to.

The hero was living that stressful life, like most of us lead.

But the hero made a decision on this very important question.

The hero had to decide whether this crazy, stressful life was gonna

Drive him crazy…or drive him!

We all have to face that heroic question.

Is the fear of what’s to come in the future going to drive you crazy,

Or is it going to drive you?

We are all scared of the future.

We are all scared of being unsung successes and underdogs forever.

Scared of being heroes that people make fun of,

And workers that bust their butts for no grand outcome to show for it.

We’re all scared.

Some people will just use this to drive them instead of cripple them with fear.

You have to decide which you will be for yourself.

This life is crazy and stressful, yes.

Sometimes it is hard to get out of bed in the morning

And put one foot in front of the other.

This crazy life, no matter how mixed-up it may get, truly is worth living.

You can always find the sunshine behind the clouds.

You can find that rainbow in those rain clouds…

You just might have to squint a little to see it.

You will pick a flower among the weeds.

You will find your drive amidst the craziness.

Because these are the moments that make up a heroic life.

Finding inspiration in everything.

Seeing a sparkle in a pile of dust.

Being the hero of your own story.

Giving this mundane life some purpose behind it.