Role models in today's society need to be carefully looked at and re-examined. There's nothing inherently wrong with the younger generation looking up to super heroes, but they should be honorable and their integrity should be as it is portrayed.

To see a favorite Olympic champion who was thought to be blameless confess she has been lying to the world about her use of steroids, is shocking. Still, it is to her credit that she decided honesty is easier to live with in the long haul. Confession is truly good for the soul.

You have to get up every morning and see your face in the mirror and you want to be able to tell yourself you did the best you could do yesterday and you hope today will go as triumphantly. What good is it to be a hero to the rest of the world and a cheat and a false person to yourself?

The football players and the baseball players that little boys used to look up to and emulate is still admired but their images as a whole has been tarnished. There has been scandal after scandal in the last few years. How did this come about?

Human beings are not perfect and when they are set on pedestals by the rest of society and expected to live up to their haloes, it is a job only a saint could carry out successfully; and a job most of them never chose, the labeling was made after they passed on. They were not doing anything superhuman, they were only being true to their beliefs; when the decision to go against that was imminent, they would not budge. (The saints, by the way, make excellent role models)

Super heroes and the role models of today are not of that caliber and the adulation surrounding them goes right to their heads. They begin to believe it and to revel in it and this is their downfall.
It is only common sense to understand that a human being can be talented and gifted in one area and a scoundrel in another. Or, rather, as a human being makes an honest mistake now and then that gets blown clear out of proportion. Had this person not been a celebrity, most would not have heard of this minor infraction.

The scoundrels of the hero league love being seen as far above everyone else and often go to great lengths to keep their superiority well known and out where everyone can buy into it. It makes no difference that to their families and to their home town folks they may be nothing but shysters.

How should we select our heroes? Very carefully. As parents and teachers we instill in pliable young vulnerable minds that only God is perfect and mere mortal men and women, while often being of superhuman quality, are subject to error. To pick them out and expect them to do no wrong is to do them a great injustice and it is to put ourselves at risk of low aim.

What is necessary is to be able to admire a person's talent and let that be our guideline while leaving the person and his personal life out of it. This is not a double standard if the emulated one never asked to be idolized. Ask any number of Hollywood stars what a pain it is to be followed around and have your every utterance made into front page headlines. Only a few of these can manage such a lifestyle; most manage a little privacy only behind locked gates and high walls.

The best role models are most often found in one's own family, a mother, a father, an aunt, or a grandfather. These folk are true heroes and their faults are as much a part of their persona as are the qualities the youngsters admire. A minister, a teacher, and maybe even a minor league coach call all be good role models and they are down to earth and approachable.

Learn more about this author, EMoore.
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