If you aren’t going to be the hero in the epic tale of your life, then who will it be? Your neighbor? The guy down the street? After all, isn’t a hero someone who does something spectacular and outrageous? Isn’t a hero who does something to change the world, to save a life, to alter the course of history forever? A hero is someone much more important that the meek, ordinary people like you and me. Right?
And what’s an epic, anyway? An epic is something majestic, impressively great, or unusually great in size, extent, or scope. It’s certainly not our mundane, simple lives! An epic is a far off adventure. It’s a journey of such immeasurable scope we cannot even…measure it! It is an undertaking of such depth and breadth that it lasts for years and includes an incredible cast of characters! An epic is The Iliad or The Odyssey, The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, or even the life stories of Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama. Those are epics. Our lives are just footnotes in the Grand Scheme of Things.
Perhaps. Or, maybe, our lives are epics, too. Maybe our life journeys span space and time and are filled with an incredible cast of characters? Maybe an epic isn’t dependent on buried treasures or fearsome monsters or enlightenment at the pinnacle of spiritual understanding! Maybe it’s driving to Dunkin Donuts every morning, working a full day at the office, and watching “How I Met Your Mother” in your jammies!
A hero embarks on the epic journey, and they continue down the path until the challenge is met, until that which must be done is done. A hero engages the path, overcomes obstacles, and does things he or she would have otherwise thought impossible. After all, that’s what makes the epic tale so mesmerizing. That’s why we bother to tune into it at all.
What about us? The common folk? Do we not meet the challenges? Do we not slay dragons?Do we not run a troll or two out of town? We do. We do almost every day of our lives. Sometimes, just rolling out of bed counts enough to be considered a Herculean task. What matters most is that we engage the path and meet the challenges, overcome the obstacles, and we do it decisively. In the end, the thing that matters is that we act like the heroes in our own epic tale.
Life is an epic tale, and you are the hero.
Illuminate Possibilities 
That sculpture really captures your message. It’s a good one (the message I mean). But I really like being reminded of how powerful visual art can be – maybe I’m just a word person – but coupled together I have to say I really like that sculpture. Very inspiring.
Once my fingers stopped typing, I thought to myself, "This one needs a good picture." So, I "flipped" through a few that I took in the Louvre. There were three possible photos to use, but this one really nailed it for me. I am glad that it worked for you, too, with this post.