Daily Heroes

"The Heroism we recite / Would be a normal thing", so said Emily Dickinson in her famous poem We never know how high we are. It is always interesting to see that heroism that we worship in movies and stories is actually observed in our daily lives everywhere. We always believe that heroic deeds happen only when some catastrophic or significant events happens and men, women rise to the occasion. The real heroism does not wait for significant events or wars, I see people all around us who are heroes in everyday.

The human society as we know it has created so many situations, knowingly or unknowingly, that really requires extraordinary effort to live in the moment. There are people who travel around the world to support their families, individuals go through tremendous personal challenges to make the day and yet maintain smiles on the face. Are these not the real heroes? The people who take their daughter to evening dance classes while after meeting grueling professional goals - day after day without fail, the people who sustain the losses and still start afresh on their pursuits everyday, the people who struggle to meet their daily expenses - all of them are heroes in our daily lives. One can argue that it is tough life, but that does not mean the heroics that we do everyday to make the day are any less significant than winning a war or fighting the social inequalities. People just don't write books about it - that's all.

It is of course less interesting to know how somebody made through the killing traffic to hospital to meet his father in time than an iconic hero fighting crime on silver screen. Daily stories of heroes might be small and to a great extent insignificant but they are are heroic nevertheless!