I was thinking about this story I read in high school about a soldier who drops a flask or something and then his group starts taking fire. So, someone has to get the flask, I think it was water and they were running low or something. Nobody wants to do it and he convinces himself to do it. Halfway through his slog towards that flask, with enemies firing at him, he realizes... well, actually, it depends on the reader's interpretation. One way to read it is that he realizes there are no heroes, a hero is really just a regular person doing something that has to be done. I thought that was a boring and pessimistic idea but that was not my reading of it. What I think actually happened was he realized that heroes are something that seem so far beyond the norm that a regular person could never think of themselves as a hero and yet he was one.
The latter interpretation was one that resonated with me, though I only realized it when I thought about it a few days ago. First off, I always lived with the mentality that I don't want to belong to a club that would have me as a member. While that's always going to be a funny quote, it's actually really harmful thinking. I think a person has to be someone they'd want to hang out with before other people are going to want to hang out with them. Maybe I worded that poorly but the simpler way of saying that is you have to like yourself before others will like you. Getting back to the story, it's a story of someone who realizes they are doing something that is considered beyond the scope of a normal person's ability but he is a normal person and he's doing it. So, in other words, anyone can be a hero. If anyone can do it, is it really so extraordinary?
I bounce back and forth between answers. If life is so simple that everyone should end up with their little Maslow pyramids filled up, why is it hard for people who seem so capable to succeed? Why does it always feel like I am just smart enough to realize how stupid I really am? I guess it's my own fault for having unrealistic expectations and for being frustrated at having to start over in a lot of aspects in life. It was actually a nice memory, that old story. It made me think that maybe if I examined what I really have done and what I really do have, maybe I'm actually currently living an extraordinary life but it's become so run-of-the mill that I long to do something greater and that never being satisfied is a good thing. Maybe every step in life is like every step that the soldier in the story took and we never realize how far we've come until we're already there.
I really wish I could remember what that story was called.
