Some of us choose the wrong heroes.
We become tickled by great names.
And so, we put these famous, celebrated, successful people up on a pedestal, but then the very moment they commit the crime of being human, when they suddenly swing from sugar to shit, we become all angry and betrayed and disappointed.
Because we built up this imaginary relationship inside our minds about who we wanted them to be.
We thought we knew them. But we didn’t.
We thought they cared about the same things we cared about. But they don’t.
Reality is, we didn’t know them any more than the quickie mart clerk knows the hundreds of customers purchasing beer and cigarettes on a daily basis. It’s all projection and expectation.
It reminds me of the mantra, never meet your heroes.
It has validity, but perhaps a more valuable insight is, we should always question who our heroes are in the first place.
Carlin once joked that he was sick of being told who his heroes ought to be, and tired of being told who he ought to be looking up to. That liberated brand of thinking, ironically enough, actually made him a hero to millions.
If you have recently found yourself disillusioned by someone you once deified, here are several practices you might consider.
Instead of forcing people to be what you want, try letting go of expectations.
Instead of allowing the neurotic fantasy script inside your heads to be the arbiter of your reality, find ways to forgive others for not being as you’d hoped.
Instead of freebasing the fatal drug of trying to control other people, find ways to create your own feelings of safety when things don’t go as you planned.
Remember, everybody is disappointing once we get to know them.
We are all tickled by great names.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
When have you chosen the wrong heroes?
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Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
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