The concept of role models is very important for each of us to consider. Many people are extremely fortunate to have a beloved parent or sibling as their role model or even a treasured grandparent or teacher. Sometimes you emulate a person you admire without specifically considering them a role model, but in essence, that is just what they are. You tend to think of a role model as a wonderful person.
The criteria for a role model, is varied. Sometimes a person's ethics make them a role model. Sometimes it is their compassion. For another, the person he or she admires may be especially loving or giving. For someone else, his or her ideal could be a financially successful person, the one who made it to the top.
However, sometimes role models represent the absolute worst that a person can be. Hard to believe that someone like that could be considered a role model, but it is possible. The Tibetans note that your enemy is your greatest teacher precisely because of how much we can learn from this person. Role models come in many forms and influence us in a myriad of ways. However, there are some universal aspects that make a person a role model:
1. The person has to epitomize being the best or worst at something, and that 'something' could be anything from pie making to mothering, leadership to moneymaking and an entire plethora of theme and variation of all traits.
2. The heights the person has attained, whether good or bad, have to be achievable. You have to feel that you can or could get there or end up there, yourself.
3. The characteristics the person epitomizes have to be unique and stand out.
4. Who they are either inspires or revolts you on a very personal level.
5. Their behavior is consistent – he or she does not change over time. If he is very good, then he’ll remain so and never leave that glorious pedestal. Conversely, the very fact that a role model with some terrible trait never changes is part of why you so remember them. Their terrible behavior sticks in your memory.
6. You remember her for your entire life. No matter how old you get, that personality is part of your life experience.
7. There is an event associated with this personality, one quintessential moment in time is seared in your memory by how he or she acted, reacted or behaved in a given moment.
8. You never forget her name.
9. You never forget his behavior.
10. This person in some way causes you to change your behavior for better or for worse forever.
11. You find that you will always be grateful to this person when you think of him or her, for the powerful lesson(s) he or she taught you.
12. The person may or may not know that you think this way about him or her.
13. One or more of your role models can create the desire in you to become that kind of role model for someone else.
14. One or more of your more sordid role models can inspire you to never become like them!
Think back over your life. You know these people. This is why you can have more than one role model. No one lives a long, rich life full of valuable experiences without having many role models of all kinds, in their emotional scrapbook. Part two will explore the position that negative role models play in your life.
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