Superheroes and Sacrifices

In the Spider-Man 2 clip, Aunt May tells Peter that a person often has to sacrifice things to be a hero—sometimes even their dreams. I agree with Aunt May. A hero must make a lot of personal sacrifices if he or she wants to fully devote themselves to saving people. You have to give up most, if not all, of your free time, and you’re likely to become known for your inability to keep to engagements because of how often you have to duck out and save the day. Superheroes who keep their true identities a secret also don’t have the luxury of saying something like “excuse me, I have to go stop a mugging on Eleventh” before making their exit. Even superheroes who are open about their true identities (such as Tony Stark, Steven Rogers, etc.) run the risk of endangering everyone around them since they are now public targets. Consequently, a superhero’s personal life, and often his/her professional life as well (unless you’re a millionaire or richer), tends to take a steep dive.  

I believe that sacrifices are often required of all of us and not just our masked vigilantes. By making other people our number one priority, we are automatically placing those individuals above our own self-interest. I think this is often the case with parents and their children. Assuming that the parents love their children, and that they want what is best for them, mothers and fathers often give up their own goals in order to help support their children’s dreams. For example, my mom and dad are helping me to pay for college, and I think it’s easy to forget that parents are not required to do so. There is no parents’ contract that tells them to, and there are certainly other areas in their own personal lives that they may wish to direct such a large sum of money rather than my college education. Yet they love me and help me out anyway. I consider that a sacrifice, and as well as any of the times they paid for my involvement in sports, bought the equipment needed, and took time out of their day to drive me to and from the sporting events. There are endless other examples.  

As for myself, I have also made personal sacrifices for the people I care about. I think many of us have at least once experienced an instance where a friend needed you, and you just dropped everything to go to them, no matter now detrimental it might have been to you later. This has happened to me a few times, where I have had to put aside my studies and help a friend out with a personal crisis. That night, I might not start my homework until 11 or 12 am. These are the sort of things we do for the people we care about, and it might often come at great personal sacrifice to ourselves. However, if we’re always looking after our own self-interests, it’s unlikely we’ll be anyone’s hero. Being generous and good seems to have a personal price for all of us, and we’re not always willing to pay.