Heroes are everywhere. 

I grew up in a time when the heroes were the boys overseas fighting the bad guys, protecting the helpless and the home front against regimes and pushbroom mustaches. 

The super heroes were also printed in comic books, a product of some supernatural catastrophe gone right. The greatest among us were in service of something greater than themselves and paid for their 'gift' with loneliness and never belonging. 

The COVID pandemic shifted the lens of heroism away from guns and capes to needles and masks, holding up the men and women that fight the tyranny of an unseen, fatal enemy and the people they're trying to save. 

The imagined heroes of the comics were birthed in colored pencil, yet very real battles were fought in court with real judges and real billions for the custody winner. 

Like our caped crusaders, our medical warriors don their masks and fight fear and bring hope, pulling from reserves they didn’t know they had. Meanwhile the man at the podium overtures domination and primacy, corrected by the good doctor in a battle of 'whose side is he on.'  Meanwhile, back to our heroes, the real fight is in supply chains and overtime pay.

So it struck me as I read a company's employee satisfaction findings when one respondent noted that we 'win on heroics.'  I looked for 'cape' in the company dress code policy, but couldn't find it. 

Heroes do their work when the mortals among us have run out of capacity -- there's no more smarts or strength or wit and the end is nigh…at least until the man-among-us steps into his tights or the fair maiden grabs her cape.  Evil will not win!

But are heroes real?  They exist in the great myths and there are heroics among us, but the enemy in the pandemic was largely disobedience and the enemy in the classroom is politics and questionable parenting.  I wonder if there are too many heroes among us.  Rather, I wonder if we create too many conditions where heroes are needed. 

As the later Marvel movies show us, good and bad aren't as simple as we want to believe.  Agendas, egos, alliances, power dynamics all get in the way.

So why was heroism cited in the company evaluation?  I'd offer that the note wasn't a comment on the quality of the people, but on the state of the process -- the conditions created through unclear job descriptions and unthoughtful budgeting processes require heroics -- people to step-up and perform miracles in order to get deals closed and product on the shelf. 

As a people, we've relied on our teachers to fix a child's learning disability and her home environment. We've relied on school administrators to support teachers, fund ever-increasing demands and beat the Chinese at math, all while working in their weekly depositions. 

Have our heroes cursed us? Do we rely on them to deliver despite the conditions we've created?  Will a hero (willingly) stop being a hero? Will we let her?

If there were a live-action movie that combined the egos of Marvel: Civil War, the politics of The Incredibles and the darkness of Batman, it might look like CNN on any given Tuesday.  Should it? 

Protect a hero by letting them be human. Heroism creates conditions where heroes aren't needed. Wear a mask. Implement the automation software. Let teachers actually teach.

Until that's true, I'm off to save the day! or up, up and away or kazooey! or some such.