Heroism is a concept that our society struggles with. For one reason or another, we have trouble nailing down what exactly it means to be a hero and people never seem to be able to agree on who can be known as one. For many of us growing up, it was a sports star or maybe our fathers who could do no wrong in our eyes. Many others had that concept of a perfect hero like Superman, Batman, or Spiderman. There were figures that were obviously larger than life and gave a perfect example of what seemingly any child would love to be. As we grow older though, we unfortunately realize that the whole Superman idea never really had a chance, and many of our favorite sports are nothing more than absurdly athletic normal people who in no way, shape or from should be looked at as heroic. There are probably exceptions to this rule, but those aren't worth getting into for the sake of this argument. I won't go as far as saying that our parents aren't heroes to many of us, because in many cases they are what we base our entire lives on and look up to.

So, what then is a hero? If all of these things are ruled out what can possibly be left? I would assert that a hero has to be someone who has a massive positive impact on the world. This person must have ideas and a way of living life that lives on far after his or her death and truly believe in that which they are fighting for. A hero is someone who is almost larger than life and in many cases has overcome impossible odds in order to accomplish something for the benefit of humanity.

That being said, Tuesday night I went to listen to the speech of Paul Rusesabagina in the KU Ballroom. For those unaware, he is the man that the film 'Hotel Rwanda' was based on and saved more than 1,000 lives during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. To this day, as is seen by his visit to UD last night, Rusesabagina continues to travel and spread his message of peace all over the world. Many times throughout his speech he emphasized the power of words and how they are such a strong weapon against evil. The more I listened to his speech though and thought about other people throughout history like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Abe Lincoln, a firefighter, a solider from a war or any other figure, the more I realized that these people were not that much different than anyone else I had met. Instead, I realized how amazingly ordinary they are and simply chose to do the right thing in a horrible situation.

Basically, that description of a hero I gave earlier is useless. It's wrong. A hero is something that any one of us could be if given the right situation. A hero is nothing more than an ordinary person who inexplicably does an extraordinary thing and is something that all of us are capable of becoming. You don't have to be a savior of the world to make a difference, you just need to reach out and touch a few, especially those that you do not have to touch.