I never grew up to become the next Michael Jordan. I never turned into the next Diego Maradona, or Ben Johnson, or Dennis Rodman. Or Kurt Cobain. I never got close to participating in the Olympics or a World Cup or even a National Championship except being a benchwarmer for a junior basketball team in Norway: we played in the unofficial Scandinavian championships for clubs, and lost every game by 40 points. I didn’t score a single point.
Now I am close to 40. My old heroes turn out to be petty, cocaine users, cheaters, and all-out trainwrecks. Or dead. I know better now. It’s time to find new heroes.
In the year 2014, I will use the so called VIA Inventory of Strenghts to identify what kind of people can serve as heroes, and how I should be more like them. If I had followed the lead of the heroes of my past, I would have ended up unhappy, bitter, unhealthy, sad – or dead. My new heroes should be the ones who make me feel the opposite in 40 years time. Luckily, I didn’t turn my youth into something heroic.
It’s time to turn my old age, the next 40 years, into a much better kind of heroic.
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Who: Jostein Sand Nilsen
Whom: wife, two children (three from February)
Where: Copenhagen (2009-2013 Prague)
When: every day
Why: …
