A hero is someone who suffers for a sympathetic cause. The suffering can be abstracted to 'takes risk' or 'sacrifices something', but the sympathy is mandatory. If the audience doesn't think the cause is "good", that's not a hero, it's a villain.
It doesn't require success, or even reasonable hope of success, only the suffering and the sympathetic cause.
Don't be a hero. Instead, do what gives you the best world.
Here is some prose that gets more and more metaphorical. Don't take it too literally.
What is a hero? I don't know. Maybe it is a matter of just behaving optimally towards some objective. Maybe, to call someone a hero you must share their objective. Maybe it is simply about trying your very best. Even in the face of great difficulty.
I know that I have not been doing any of these. Maybe I have been getting closer than most people, but not nearly close enough. And I do think that I got better at doing this over time. So that means that there is room for me to improve.
Many factors seem to be outside of my control. Like when I just feel bad, and there is no apparent reason why this is so. In that situation or before, I need to figure out why I feel bad and then circumvent it, such that I can focus on increasing productivity towards my actual objective.
There is something wrong inside me. Why am I not excited to work on math and AIA as much as possible. It makes no sense on a logical level. But of course, my brain is far from trying to do the optimal thing. All my feelings seem to be governed by some heuristics that developed in another environment than the one I am in now. And they often conflict with what is best to do.
I should try to eradicate them. But it seems likely that I will not be able to surmount them all directly (though it might be possible using meditation). But for all of them, there is bound to be a way to work around them. I just need to find the approximately best way.
Being a hero is not easy. Or at least there is one way to define "hero", which is all about doing what is right but difficult. What is courage without fear? What is being a hero without achieving difficult things? What is being a hero without achieving things that are difficult for you?
It certainly does not seem to be required to do what is best. Maybe all the easy things are the most important thing to do. But it seems that the main obstacle in your way to do the best thing will very often be difficult. That is just the curse of distributional shift.
And the hardest and most important thing you can do is to make the important things as easy to do for you as you can.
But you need to recognize that there will never come a time when doing the right thing will just always be easy. Even if right now you feel like you can do what you think is best, without any effort. If it just comes naturally to you. It is very dangerous to assume that this will always be the case, for then you get more likely to not even do the most important things as they seem too difficult to even start.
Always be prepared to be knocked down. And the first step in preparing is to know that it is coming. Not knowing at the surface level of your mind. Not thinking that it will come, and then forgetting about it. You need to engrave it deep into your mind. You need to know that the moment will come where you will have to go down the difficult, but right path. And that moment will not come alone. The time will come where not an hour has passed and you will need to have chosen a hundredfold the right thing. The first choice is the easiest.
And you need to know it. Nobody else can know it for you. And you need to act on that knowledge. Use it to prepare, for once the storm hits you you won't have time to build your shelter. You will just be carried away.
Looking up to someone. Someone powerful, someone you respect, someone you admire, someone you like, someone wise, someone smart, someone who beliefs in what they are doing.
How many attributes are there? And how many of them does a person need to have for you to be willing to follow them. Maybe the most important attribute after all is none of the above. But it is someone that wants. Someone with a burning desire. A desire that does not go away. A desire you can make progress on and see that you are making progress on it.
But whatever the attributes, following that person will be easier than striking our own path. If that person commands you, and you are loyal, then you know what to do. You have your goal set, and there is never any doubt about it. You might not know how to accomplish it, but there is no doubt about the goal. And always there is the core, the burning desire of your master to fall back onto. If you are devoted to the absolute, there is never any doubt about what is right. It is just about making right.
But to be a hero, you can't be following someone. That means that there will be moments where you do not know what to do. Moments where you stand in the void. Nothing is there. You need to face the void and realize that it can't harm you. That it can do nothing at all. But if you do not face the void, if you face away, it will eat away at you, make you feel miserable, and ultimately destroy you. You need to face the void and need to recognize it for what it is. Nothing at all.
The void is beautiful. You can put anything into the void and it won't resist. You can fill it to whatever you want. But realize that the void does not become what you want. What you want simply exists in the void.
You don't need to do this. And if you put something into the void, you can still recognize the void for what it is at an instant's notice. Never forget the void, for it is what is.
Being the hero is hard. But you need to be the hero. There is no alternative. None that gives more than an illusion of satisfactoriness.
Being the hero is hard.
You will fail. Often. You won't be able to keep track of how often you fail. But all you need to do is begin again. In every moment. Irrespective of how often you have failed. Irrespective of how long you have failed. Begin again. Always. Now. Being the hero is hard.