JORGE RODRIGUES SIMAO

"Show me a hero," quipped American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, "and I will write you a tragedy." The ultimate tragedy, however, is the vast majority of modem hero-worshipers in the Western world who revere false heroes. So much so, that hero is one of the most misused words in the English language. As a matter of course hero today is mostly applied to people who do well in sports or in the financial world or in show business and have gotten a lot of publicity. Unfortunately, the modem American hero is somebody whom we adore, respect, worship, or idolize for all the wrong reasons. With this in mind, it's best to be careful with your heroes. Don't put any of them on a pedestal. After all, no one - even a true hero - deserves to be there.

Nothing comes quite so easily to us as the ability to procrastinate. With varying degrees, we all have the tendency to let things slide. In fact, most of us could write the Bible on time-wasting - but there again, we would never get around to putting this project together regardless of how much promise it offered. We always have too many much more important activities to pursue - such as sleeping, watching television, surfing the Internet for twisted humor, and checking out absolutely useless e-mails.

Not so long ago I received a brochure advertising the annual conference for an international human resources foundation. The cover of the brochure announced, "BE A KNOW-IT-ALL! Here's how." The inside of the brochure promised, "Join our Foundation and see how easy it is to know-it-all." As I read this brochure, I wondered if these professionals - I use the term lightly – had contemplated the advantages of "not knowing it all".

Martin Luther called reason "the Devil's harlot." Have you ever noticed how reasonable you are - and how many aspects of your life still don't work all that well? Perhaps the more reasonable you become, the more your life is thrown in disarray. This is the kind of thing that happens when your dreams and your actual life situation are not in harmony. You may have to rise to the occasion by throwing reason out the window and becoming more unreasonable.