When Samwise was trying to cheer poor Frodo up on the steps of the long climb to Mordor from Minus Morgol he talked a bit about the stories that we read of heroes on great adventures. He is quoted as saying to Frodo, that “adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually — their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten.”
So we learn a little nugget of wisdom from Mr. Tolkein, aka, Samwise Gamgee. Heroes do not seek out adventures where they can prove their heroism, rather, they find themselves pulled into scenarios what require them to show their worth. They do not shirk, because if they did, we would never hear of them. Rather we hear of the the ones that rise to the occasion, against many odds, and keep on going until the task is won. So are you in the middle of a difficult journey, a hard task, a complicated path? Are you facing persecution, grief and struggle? Well, if you are then you have found yourself on an adventure and now is the time where you can act the part of a hero or you can bail out.
Keep in mind that heroes are always the ones that do not runaway from challenges and conflict. Rather they stay the course. They become heroes later, once the results come in.
Guy Reams
