If not the Cowboys, who are the real "heroes"?

According to the society that we live in today, a hero is someone, typically a man, who is noble and has rescued someone or something from some kind of danger. When children are growing up, everyone wants to be a cowboy with a trusty steed just like Woody from Toy Story. Everyone wants to be just like Superman, Spiderman, and Batman. As children we are blinded by the stereotypes or the idealization of what the world wants us to think that a hero is, but we never really stopped to look at the big picture. We never really stopped and asked ourselves, "What do I think a hero really is?” By the time we are willing and able to ask ourselves that, we are already grown, and have run out of belief in things like that. In my book, a hero is anyone that you look up to, and aspire to be like in the future. If you believe that you can still be like that person by the time you are a teenager, around 16, the person you believed in was truly a hero. A hero is someone that makes you want to be a better person. Someone who performs selfless acts in order to do the right thing everyday. A hero is anyone that you can believe in. Regular people can be heroes too.

                 With every hero, comes a villain. The villain might not be an actual person like The Joker, The Green Goblin, and Lex Luthor as you may think. Society's misrepresentation leads us to believe that everything they put in movies is true, but that’s not the case. People deal with enemies all of the time. Not only superheroes have a villain. Some people have to face demons like addictions and sicknesses everyday, but that doesn't make them any less of a hero. Sometimes a villain could be someone in your family, someone who has abused you, or even yourself on occasion. In the poem, my heroes have never been Cowboys by Sherman Alexie his heroes were the indians which also happen to be his ancestors. Their villain, who continues to be Alexie’s villain, were the “Cowboys” of the west. In our minds, American's today, those wouldn’t typically be the villains, so who’s to say that a homeless man living in central park couldn’t be a hero? The whole point of America is freedom. You have the freedom to believe what you want to believe, and you have the freedom to believe in whichever hero you’d like.

         I personally have many heroes. Starting from President Barak Obama, to many members of my family. When I was growing up, I always wanted to be like my mother, and she’s proved to me a worthy hero. She faces her demons head on, and asserts herself everyday. She’s no Superman or Batman, and she doesn’t go out rescuing damsels in distress or anything like that, but she’s my hero because she gave me life, and she always lead me in the right direction even when I wanted to veer off of that path. She’s not society’s typical hero, but she is mine.

         Cowboys have never been my heroes, but neither has the Native Americans. When I was younger, I never wanted to be a cowboy or some made up superhero. I never had the desire to grow up, and be a hero. I always wanted to be myself, or just like my mom. If you go by society’s version of a superhero, then there are no hero’s in the world; they would all be made up characters in some book that will eventually be thrown away. If you go by my definition of a hero then everyone is a hero.