—
My first recollection of a superhero was Captain Planet. Like any other boy, my ideas of manhood were formed in part by the valiant heroes I grew up watching: Spiderman. Superman. Batman. They represented everything I wanted to be, everything I believed I could be over the passage of puberty and into adulthood.
One day I’d grow up to be one of them. I’d save the day and get the girl.
What does a man do when he realizes he falls short and most likely always will?
|
Most of us grew up like that. Holding ourselves, subconsciously, to a standard of being a hero in our life movie. As it always does, life has its own ideas and designs on the path our journey should take. We find ourselves facing the stark reality that we’ve fallen short of the image of ourselves we had. Our business didn’t work out. Our marriage failed. Our health gave in sooner than expected. Our expectations of ourselves, and what we thought we would build, were crushed.
What does a man do when he realizes he falls short and most likely always will?
There are two paths we find ourselves faced with:
We can choose bitterness or humility. Choosing bitterness says that we were wronged by life and we would rather bear the grudge of injury than to use it to forge us into being a better man. Humility looks back on the experience and extracts as much learning and development opportunities, no matter how personally painful they may be.
We can place blame or take responsibility. Choosing blame exonerates us from any part we contributed to the tragedies that befell us on the way to carving out our dreams, which is not always true or realistic. Responsibility owns up to our weaknesses and identifies trigger points that we should be aware of lest we fall into the same trap again.
We can remain rigid in our ways or allow ourselves to be forged and shaped by our challenges and weaknesses. Choosing stubbornness means refusing to be malleable to life’s richest learning experiences and change our erroneous ways of thinking or doing things.
Perhaps making the more difficult choices of humility, responsibility, and malleability when our egos have been bruised are, in the end, the true marks of a superhero after all.
Photo: Getty Images
Great read. Only if men realized sooner in their lives that they can’t be superheroes in all situations and that it is okay to sometimes say I am unable to, would you please help, instead of being stubborn and thinking they can do ALL; which often leads to more disappointments and bruised egos and abusive behavior.
Thanks for the article Lindi, well articulated.
I guess the biggest wake up call when we realize we are not superheroes, is to accept we are not in control. We can’t control others, we can’t control economic environment, we can’t control our colleagues, we can’t control our spouses, kids etc. We can plan to the best of abilities but we can’t control the outcome. The sooner we accept we are not in control of the outcome the better. However we are always in control of how we respond to the outcome. Which is my understanding from this article. We may not be superheroes to the outside world,… Read more »
Brilliant article. Growing up I remember super heroes or aboSterring always had the easy way out available like giving up, let someone else save the world, why should it be my responsibility? They pulled themselves away from those choices and made the hero’s choices, took the hero’s actions: got up and saved the world despite all the resistance, that’s what makes them heroes. Guess life is an everyday battle of choices we take: to take the easy way out that will leave us in the same position as we were in yesterday or taking the uphill path of growth and… Read more »