The Average Soul

Millions of faces make up our world. Their features blend into the others as an unmemorable mask of human life. When really, it is how we look at that mask that makes it memorable. It takes one soul to save a life, and one soul to save mine. Yet the soul that saved my life, I do not know their name. They live their life with absolutely no connection to mine and mine goes on without a glimmer of theirs. But still, they are my hero and one year ago they saved my life. That is not to say that they psychically pushed me out from in front of a moving car, but by simply breathing and being alive they gave me the will to live. I do not mean this in an overly metaphorical cheesy way that will make you sigh and roll your eyes; I mean it in the very literal sense of the words.

One year ago, I did not have the will to live. I am not saying that I had the urge to end my own life, or the guts to do so, but I was not truly living. I was an empty shell of the potential that I could be. I lived in self-loathing and had no common valor for my own self worth. I watched as the world and people I loved lived on around me. I watched my beloved grandpa die, and I watched the soul of my grandma die with him. Dying is easy. It’s getting left behind that hurts the most. That’s what I learned in those painful weeks that followed. But sometimes it’s the things that hurt the most, the hardest to go for, that are the most worthwhile in the end. My hero inspired me to live.

My hero is the average soul. My hero is the person who kisses their children goodbye in the morning and goes to work to make money to keep the roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. It is the person who volunteers their spare time during the week to make sure that those who don’t have clothes and families have a comfortable way of life. My hero is the little boy who smiles tentatively at the camera, already moving on his way as he breathes in the soft air. It is the doctor in the hospital who takes the time to smile at the little girl in the wheelchair and draw a flower on her cast. It is the little girl in the wheelchair who smiles back bravely, even though she is afraid that she may never be able to run or play ever again. My hero is all the people who live their lives every day, giving and expecting nothing in return. It is all the good in humanity.

The average soul saved me, because it was the person that I wanted to be: The hardworking citizen that has an aim and purpose in life and people to live for. It’s because of these people that the world keeps spinning for us every day. My hero is the average soul of the past, present, and future. Their time on this earth may not be long, but their passion for life will last forever. Like a kiss goodbye, the imprint is left behind for others to stumble over and imagine a better world.

My hero is the average soul. It is the soul that is lost and must be found. But it is not the soul that depends on others. It is the one, reaching and grasping to get their own feet on the ground themselves. My hero is the person that I can believe in. It is the person who believes enough in themselves to achieve the small greatness of living. I am not the only one to have seen this greatness and inspiration in the people around me. Others saw it before me. Was it not Walt Whitman who wrote:

Whitman saw it. He saw the hardworking average person who picked themselves back up after a struggle. It is the soul who fought for life, if only to make it worth living for. To live a life without a purpose is nothing, it is not truly living. Cause that is what life is about, making it worth living for. I did not know this a year ago, I was lost you could say. But if you don’t want to get caught up in being philosophical, you could say that I was just caught somewhere in the in between. That is how my hero saved me; they saved me by being my inspiration to live. The average soul is my reason to live, because one day, I hope to be just like them. Living my life for real, the way it is supposed to be.