I received a card once with the Maya Angelou quote on it, “I think a hero is any person really intent on making this place a better place for all people”. It is a quote that has come to my mind at different points over the years since I first read it.

I like the quote. I also would like to build on it.

I think a hero is any person really intent on making the place within themselves a better place for themselves and for others. 

By better, I do not mean more perfect. I do not mean a place so selective of and absent of certain thoughts, emotions, and states that it looks like glossy ads of air-brushed smiling faces, or of people leaping up into the air joyfully or walking on sunny beaches in perpetuity.

So what do I mean by the word, better?

It might take me time to arrive at something that feels like just the right word or phrase. In the mean time, I will say that I mean a place in which you come to experience your wholeness, your full humanity, and a place where, in this experiencing, you also experience qualities like peace, acceptance, courage, strength; you experience something like friendly relations. Additionally, it is an inner place you work to develop that although it is for you and for your benefit, it isn’t only for you. It is an inner place that benefits and nourishes something larger, an inner place that makes the wider, outer, other places better including for other beings, for all.

I think a hero is any person who holds the intention and works to cultivate this inner place of wholeness, friendly relations, and wisdom, and who does this holding the wider view of the world around them.

Heroes abound.

I write with celebration.