Personal Heroes   Perhaps it’s a result of writing too many college essays about the topic, but I can’t help but think of heroes as the individuals who inspire me, personally. Obviously, there are a multitude of people, like firefighters for example, whose actions are considered heroic but who do not resonate as strongly with me as other individuals do. Of course, this is not to say that they are not heroic. Rather, they do not play a significant part in my life as role models. That is what makes someone a hero to me – if they act as a role model, inspiring me to follow their good, brave, and kind actions. I find, unsurprisingly, that my heroes champion many of the values I hold myself, such as dedication, hard work, intelligence, kindness, passion, and bravery. Additionally, in order for a hero to be truly inspiring to me, they must have lived or – in one exception – be extremely realistic, otherwise it is difficult for me to put my full faith in them.   How do my heroes compare to more typical heroes like Odysseus? Given these parameters on my definition of hero, I found some significant differences, but also a few unexpected similarities, between Campbell’s heroes and my own. One of the abilities of a hero that Campbell emphasized most strongly was that of being able to transcend a given context and instead, after confronting numerous challenges, deal with archetypes, the “problems and solutions…directly valid for all mankind” (19). It is then the assigned role of the hero to return to their society or world and, by bringing with them their newfound knowledge, prompt “a vivid renewal of life” (17). As Prianka pointed out, it seems that Campbell’s heroes are isolate in myth, facing such insurmountable challenges, and being expected to return to save their entire society, that there is no way they could realistically exist. Additionally, Campbell’s elaborate descriptions of the hero make me wonder where people who are considered heroic, using the example of firefighters again, fit in to his definition. In this sense, Campbell’s heroes are much, much grander than my own. However, though my heroes may not have battled the Minotaur or gained enlightenment, I still recognize in them something similar to Campbell’s “renewal of life.” As role models, my heroes inspire me. They help me see beyond the way things are to the way things could be and they drive me to action, which feels a little like Campbell’s “principle of regeneration” (17). Perhaps Campbell’s rigorous qualifications to be considered a hero are better left in the world of myth, though the problems that create heroes stay the same. Campbell himself notes this in his discussion of the hero today. He emphasizes that the split soul is still an issue, and that “the modern hero-deed must be that of questing to bring to light again the lost Atlantis of the co-ordinated soul” (388). Like Prometheus, our modern hero must find a way to create meaning again in a world that is becoming increasingly chaotic and meaningless. In this definition, I can see a much closer reflection of my own role models, and I think it is by this definition that we should judge our heroes.