Heroes & Villains

 We are all heroes in our own story and all villains in someone elses.

Who said that? Well maybe someone else did, but me, I just said it now. 

I think it is interesting because I could say that to someone, and my guess is that the reaction would be to start mulling over all the times they were accused of something and getting cross with their accuser, perhaps more sedately saying "yeah, we can't be everyone's cup of tea", or perhaps thinking about all the villains they know and recounting their crimes.

But when I thought that, what occurred to me was the universality of it. I am saying that we are ALL heroes and ALL villains. 

We know our own backstory, we know why we have done things that rub someone up the wrong way - it was probably in pursuit of an heroic end, at the very least we were just doing our best - and we were misunderstood, they were just wrongheaded. But we know the glorious truth of the right of what we did. 

We also know what has rubbed us up the wrong way about something else, someone elses actions. And what we are sure about is that we know their villainous motivations better than they do themselves. Or perhaps we throw our hands up in exasperation..."I just don't know how a person could be so stupid/wrong/hateful/horrible!!"

But we don't connect the two and realise that we are all the same person. All heroes, all villains. And if that is the case, if we can make that connection...maybe our villains, aren't quite so villainous after all?

(We can still be a hero though right?)