Superman Is Not Brave
Superman is not brave. You can’t be brave when you are indestructible. It’s exceedingly difficult to write a Superman story. How do you challenge the “strongest” guy? He can fly, and shoot lasers, and has frost breath, and was able to discharge smaller versions of himself to fight crime.
That last thing is real.--> https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/02/04/supermans-15-weirdest-superpowers
It’s tough to build something that Superman cannot overcome. You can’t really beat him to death. Suddenly, “Doomsday” is heard from the back row. I respond with, you know he came back a few months later with a sweet mullet and a black suit, right? Didn’t beat him to death, just a solid coma at best. I know you want to say, Kryptonite and magic are weaknesses; however, this compares to pulling out a tarantula out on an arachnophobic person. He is irrationally shocked. In that moment, Superman loses focus and control of himself. But then it’s shown that he is super smart too and boom, there is an easy resolution for him. Like get away from the Kryptonite or pull in a magical “thing” to help save the day. In the end, Superman stories can be really boring because he doesn’t have to be brave.
We are clearly never going to be as physically strong as Superman. We would break more things than we fixed anyway. Nonetheless, we continue to press forward and do scary things all the time, but we can be injured. We can be beaten. We can be defeated, and we still move forward.
This is the difference. We know it and persist. Fear is just something Superman doesn’t have to experience on a regular basis. So, what can we do as mere mortals? Face fear constantly. Stand with confidence and understand doing your best is the only thing you can do. I’m still scared of plenty of things, but I will challenge myself to face fears or to at least question, “Why does this make me fearful?”
Whether we think we can, or we think we can’t, we are right. If you choose to fear something, begin to ask why. It’s going to start with an insecurity.
Is it that I feel inadequate?
Will someone criticize, ridicule, or poke fun at me?
Can I manage embarrassment and doubt until I enviably improve?
Is there support? Can I make new friends and allies?
Am I strong enough to endure?
As you progress and improve, this following quote just stuck with me. “When bad news happens to you, 80% of people don’t care and 20% are glad it happened to you.” Others want you to fail. It’s one of the things that Superman has a tough time with. We like redemption stories and the fall of heroes about the same. When someone is too good, we criticize smaller details of their work to humanize them. Make them more like regular folk. Regular folk don’t fight hard to change. They just exist the day-in day-out waste until they just die one day.
What has been that thing you just can’t get over? What stops you? Most people will say they don’t have time. Be brave enough to make some time. Schedule it. Practice just that. That tough thing is there for a reason. You are supposed to learn from it. There is no top end of seeking courage. We all scare of different things. Be aware that that is okay. You might be scared forever, but you won’t learn more by actively avoiding it. Test it out. Try. Then try again. Then try again. I bet its scary to skydive once but doubt it’s scary on the 1000th jump.
