Tuesday 15 October 2013

We Can Be Heroes

I do not know why but in the past year, I have experienced what I would regard as emotional highs and lows. I often try to stick to being bland and boring and quiet because it means that my emotions remain quite average but sometimes I get happy and have a really good day and so about an hour after that I hit what I would regard as an emotional low. One tiny little thing usually happens that normally wouldn’t even bug me makes me break down crying.

I just experienced one of those.
Today I, along with my school environment group, held a workshop at an expo for local primary schools that focused on the environment. I had a good day, was talkative, and was happy around my friends and then I got home and I got some major test results back and went amazingly, which added to my good mood. The thing that made me break down was my persuasive writing results. Along with reading, spelling, language conventions, and numeracy, I got well above the nations average in these tests, persuasive writing, which is normally my best subject, I got the lowest mark on. What set me off was my dad just saying that he thought I was good at persuasive writing, which I am.
The subject of the essay was that we had to choose someone who we regarded as a hero and write why they should receive an award. I spent about 30 minutes of the time we had sitting and thinking about this question. I went badly because I don’t have a hero and even though I chose a friend of mine who I thought was admirable, I didn’t think of her as a hero because I don’t have a hero. I do not think that anyone should be your hero but yourself.
Some people may think this opinion is stupid, that we should all aspire to be like someone, whether that be someone like our parents, an Olympic athlete, an actor, a member of parliament, I don’t. I used to have a hero and they let me down.
When I was 4 years old, my hero was Dr Harry. Dr Harry is a vet who now is most commonly known for his section on animal care and tips on the television show Better Homes and Gardens. I had colouring in books, picture books, sticker books, and posters of Dr Harry. When I grew up I wanted to be just like him, I wanted to be a vet and take care of animals but at a meet and greet at a local gardening centre where he was being an ambassador for his television show, when my parents tried to tell him about how much I, a four year old girl, thought of him as a hero, he hardly acknowledged their existence. Then I found a new hero, Steve Irwin, who was a very famous wildlife handler and zookeeper. When I was eight years old, he died.
From a young age I have learnt that, it is pointless to have heroes because they will disappoint you, or will die. You should be your own hero and try to make yourself the sort of person that you would admire. The best reason for being your own hero though is that there is no one there to let you down and be a disappointment, it is all on you. You decide what you want to do and if you want to let yourself down.
That is the core reason why I broke down today, because of the concept of heroes and letting yourself down. I did not stick to what I believe in. In that essay I should have just wrote why I believe we should not have a hero instead of just writing about how much I admire my friend. I let myself down.