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Hero

On Paul’s blog today, he mentioned his three motivations in life. That got me thinking about what drives me. There is one common theme throughout most of my life… I wanted to be a hero. When I was a kid I used to daydream about some catastrophe happening at school, or at a sports event, or something like that, and then I would come along and by some stroke of luck, or chance, or skill, I would rescue everyone who was threatened by that catastrophe. (Most of the time ‘everyone’ was basically just one person: what ever girl I happened to have a crush on at the time). After the rescue everyone would cheer and applaud, and respect me.

Later on I decided that a more likely way of becoming a hero was by acheivement. This is evidenced in my 4.0 high school GPA, 32 ACT, Eagle Scout Award, starting position on my football team, leads in plays, etc, etc…

An interesting thing happned when I came to college though: no one cared. No one knew who I was, or cared what I did in high school. The slate was wiped clean, and everyone started on a level playing field. I also soon discovered that, as an engineering student, I was very, very, average. It was around that time that I forgot my desire to be a hero, stopped having daydreams about catastrophes that I could rescue people from, and really stopped caring about acheivement. Actually I stopped caring about a lot of things.

I wonder though, as I strive to serve God and make him known on campus, is there still some of that underlying motivation of wanting to be a hero?

And if so, is that a bad thing?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2003 at 3:28 pmand is filed under Matt's External Brain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Responses to “Hero”

  1. paul said on: July 29th, 2003 at 5:10 pm

    Yes matt that is very wrong. To desire to be a hero even for God is shameful and despicable. I have no idea why you would every wish for such a thing. Even as a child your urge to save some girl was completely a sin and you should put it out of your mind and continue to live a bland and tiresome existance full of meanial tasks and lack of motivation. For we should strive to be like our father in heaven who never changes and is completely and in all otherwise boring and not at all into saving, rescuing, or in the least being a hero. Once again shame on you and I will continue to pray for your salvation.
    Your Loving Brother,

  2. Ochuk said on: July 29th, 2003 at 5:50 pm

    Matt:

    Are you wanting to be a hero so that you can get noticed, or are you living for an audience of one?

    It seems as though you were indeed a hero unto yourself, and no one cared.

    It is not a bad thing to be a hero for God, although I would not use that term to describe myself.

    I prefer sage.

  3. mattt said on: July 29th, 2003 at 10:37 pm

    Thank you both for your encouraging and insightful comments.

  4. paul said on: July 29th, 2003 at 11:21 pm

    You’ll always be Nancy’s hero! :)

  5. nancy said on: August 2nd, 2003 at 12:02 pm

    You got that right, Paul :)