What most people seem to forget though is the fact that they too are wounded just like everyone else.
I often forget this sometimes. It is easy to think that you are alone and the first ever person to be faced with such a battle or battle scar. Boy does it feel great when you find that hand reaching down from above, taking hold of yours and pulling you upward. Ones first reaction may be to pull their hand back to their side. Then they look up and see the hand extended and waiting for the time to be just right. That's a hero in my mind; the gentle soul who waits with their heart and their hand extended. The listening ear, a kind word, a warm hand or gesture of goodwill enables strength and helps heal wounds. The one who 'Notices' is a hero in my book.
“We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants...I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. she walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. She knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.
People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism?
The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars