The Motivational Man And Woman: The Superhero

It hurts. The world gets bigger, everything becomes darker. Suddenly, you’re falling. You hit the ground. There’s nothing there.

You’re alone.

You want to move, but you can’t. You want to get up, but you can’t. You want to do something, but you can’t. You’re left feeling empty and broken as though there’s nothing left to do.

Then, you feel it.

There comes a moment in our lives where we feel it. We feel the rush. We feel the warmth summoning inside us.

This feeling – it’s hope.

Hope comes from everywhere around us. It’s the one thing that keeps us pushing. Hope picks you up off the floor when you feel like there’s nothing left.

Hope is embodied in the superhero.

Although they are characters of fiction, superheroes are motivating. They embody everything we want to be and everything we’re not. They embody the good inside us. But, they also represent our mistakes, our insecurities, our weaknesses. We see ourselves in these fictional characters. We relate to them.

No matter how fast The Flash may run, there are things even he can’t stop. No matter how much we do, no matter how hard we try, there are things that we can’t stop. But The Flash doesn’t let that stop him, he keeps running, and so do we.

Through everything Batman has experienced – the loss of his parents, the loss of his friends, the tragedies he’s endured – he doesn’t break his moral code and he doesn’t give up. And regardless of our struggles, our adversities, our tragedies, neither do we.

Green Arrow makes mistakes. He’s not the perfect hero, and the guilt weighs down on him, but he doesn’t stop. He knows that the good he does will always outweigh the mistakes he makes. We make mistakes. But we learn, and we grow. The good we do, the good we’ve learned from our mistakes, will always outweigh the bad.

We are Green Arrow. We are Batman. We are The Flash.

We find ourselves in superheroes, and I believe there’s a superhero for everybody. Why? Because we relate to them. Because our favorite heroes are people that we see ourselves in.

They’re the people that motivate us.

Whether you’re a high school kid that feels the pressure of the future, or an adult regretting your mistakes, superheroes have shown us that there’s hope for everybody. They tell tales of conquering the same struggles the common man and woman face.

In the end, when it’s our turn to face these problems, we look to them – because if they can do it, then so can we.

Raymond Vinuya