Idle Idol Worship

Some time ago a friend asked me who did I idolize. As I visibly struggled to think of a role model, he good naturedly mocked me saying "You probably think you are too good to have an idol".

His words stuck with me as I thought more and more about it. Was it my ego that made me assume that I did not need to look up to anyone?

Recently I was sort of introduced via a dear friend to someone who has accomplished everything I have dreamt of. He is an air force officer, a national award winner, has the extremely rare achievement of circumventing the earth, and to top it all is a published author, probably witty and personable too. Sadly I never followed up on a possible friendship, what if he turned out to be arrogant and condescending, or even dismissive. What if on a personality level we did not have anything in common? I had him on too high a pedestal to risk the falling off so I just kept my distance. Foolish? I agree. My neuroses? probably. Irrational?  surely.

It’s true that I don't/can't worship anyone; it is true I do not wish to emulate anyone. I think it just not restricted to me but true for a lot of us. It actually may be really common in our modern cynical society. We all have seen the so called inspirational leaders with feet of clay. The more you read, the more you listen, the more you observe, the more you realize no one is perfect.

Role models and idols should be the fulcrum of leadership. People, whom you read, emulate and try to define your success by how close you can come to copying their mannerisms, choices and lifestyles. But in this day and age when everyone's life has been picked apart, we know no one is perfect.

Look at the great figures of recent history; Mother Teresa has been criticized for using her charitable work to promote her Catholic beliefs; Gandhi for general abandonment of his own family; Martin Luther King Jr. for allegations of infidelity; Even Jesus using violence when he ran the people out of the temple. You realize People are just people; human beings are mortal feeble beings. So we stop expecting them to be super men. And we take the cynical viewpoint of being our own idol.

That relief I felt at knowing I was not really egoistic was tinged with disappointment at my inability to have a role model. As Ben Johnson said “Very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool for his master.” 
So was I a fool?, someone who thought was even above Aristotle whose idea of virtue ethics relies largely on the effects role models have on people. 

So I went back to reflecting and realized something wonderful, More about that later……