How to defeat the heroes from hell

HAS ANYONE else noticed how extremely difficult life has become of late, or is it just my small circle of friends and I who are battling with a constant bombardment of challenges?

We shouldn’t complain, and should learn to be more thankful for small mercies, but as an example, how many times has it happened to you that you walked up to an elevator, even in a two-floor building, just to find that the elevator is NEVER on your floor? You ALWAYS have to wait, because someone else moved YOUR lift.

“That’s not so bad,” I hear someone protest. So allow me to up the game.

Has it ever happened to you that you fell madly, deeply, hopelessly in love with a product? You know, finally, the universe makes sense and you go and tell all your friends, you post to social media and have a tattoo etched into your skin, proclaiming that THIS dish soap, lotion, coffee blend, car polish … whatever it is, has won your heart forever and always!

And then one day, without so much as a whisper, the product is mysteriously missing from the shelves.

Sometimes you are teased; you go into a store that’s off the grid and there you find one or two of your beloved items – you buy both, and savour them, praying that they will somehow return to the shelves.

But deep down we all know that THAT product is gone forever. It feels like Karma has its claws in you, and you think maybe you should have been nicer back in 1977.

I think, and it’s just an opinion, that we all get so deflated and distressed when things don’t work out for us because we all feel deserving of good things. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with that. Hope is a wonderful feeling, and one that should be cherished. But maybe it goes beyond hope.

Maybe the reason we believe that we deserve better is because we identify as heroes.

You know, those heroes in the movies who turn up amidst a roomful of bad guys, and after several minutes of thuds, ‘klappe’, ‘skoppe’ and head cracks, they walk out of the room having kicked some names and taken … Wait, that sounds wrong. Never mind, you get my point, I am sure.

The thing is, on the silver (or these days ‘plasma’) screen, the heroes always win. That’s why, I imagine, everyone seems so focused on winning these days – we all sincerely, and often mistakenly, believe that WE are that hero who should always win.

And here’s the problem with that: No matter what wicked, conniving, destructive or downright bad actions we carry out, often we are blissfully unaware of our cruelty simply because in our minds WE are heroes after all, and therefore WE are always justified in our actions.

In other words, the end justifies the good guy’s every single action. “My way is all good because I am a hero, no matter what I do, and a hero can do no wrong!”

Is it any wonder why arguments and friction in organisations, families or on the world stage can get so out of hand … if everyone believes they are right, they can justify – as I mentioned – any injustice!

Back when we were playing our games of “Cowboys and Crooks”, “Cops and Robbers” and “Spacemen and Aliens”, there was a phrase that would set the record straight in an instant if you got too big for your boots and forgot your place.

In fact adults would use it when you made just one too many mistakes. Sometimes they even used it when you made just a single mistake.

That phrase was … wait, let me explain it by providing an example of how it was used, and when used, instantly deflated an ego.

When you notice someone who has an over-inflated opinion of themselves, and an obvious hero complex, just look them in the eye and say: “No, no, no ... you must come right now!”