Column: Good and bad found in everyone

By Rachel Allred

Published Dec. 3, 2010

"Should I accept my role as a villain?"

LeBron James asked this question in a recent Nike commercial. But after I heard it, I wasn't thinking about basketball, LeBron or shoes. I was thinking about my role as a villain.

When I hear the word villain, I usually picture this: a handlebar-mustachioed, hunched-over man, with a black cape pulled around to cover half his face, walking with a sneaky, tiptoed gait. Somehow, I don't think this was the type of villain LeBron was talking about.

Admittedly, I don't really follow basketball, and I certainly don't know LeBron's life story or all the presumably villainous things he's done. I don't need to know that, though, to ponder the idea that maybe we all have a sort of villain in us. Perhaps those internal villains are the most dangerous.

Before your imaginations get too carried away, I'm not suggesting we're all possessed by some evil, raging entity. Rather, I'm supporting the idea no one's perfect, and that's OK. Each person possesses both positive and negative tendencies and character traits. We've all got bad habits, and we've also got good attributes. Thankfully, we can decide which ones we focus on and make more dominant.

In order to more fully understand and better ourselves, we do need to accept the fact that, whether intentionally or innocently, sometimes we will assume the role of a villain. As any superhero knows, weaknesses can't be controlled if they're not recognized, and accepting that mistakes might occasionally villanize us doesn't mean we should embrace that role.

But sometimes the role is in the eye of the beholder. As Bill Cosby said, "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." For example, some see protesters as radical and obnoxious, but others see them as valiant and brave.

It's often easier to focus more on others' negative traits than their positive ones. Some assume everyone is a 'villain' until he or she has proven him or herself otherwise. For whatever reason, the negative seems more obvious. I recently heard several people debating whether or not some famous historical figures were good people. It became pretty heated when some vouched for Abraham Lincoln by saying he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, granting freedom to millions of slaves. He was a hero of sorts. Others retorted that he issued the proclamation to help him politically — not so much because he wanted equality. His intentions, then, were not so heroic.

I won't try to prove which idea is correct. I never knew the guys. I will, however, say since everyone has skeletons in their closet and no one can always be flawless, we have to take the good with the bad and decide which has more weight.

More important than all this villain jibber-jabber is the flip side: If anyone can play the role of a villain, anyone can play the role of a hero. The inner hero has more strength than comic book superheroes that wear spandex, capes and can tear down buildings. Inconspicuous heroes try to focus on the positive and do what they can to eliminate the negative. They aren't perfect, but they try to outweigh the bad with good.

The roles of villain and hero aren't as black-and-white as they might seem. Heroes can become villains, and villains can become heroes. I've certainly had my moments of both. Although I can't expect to be 'the good guy' all the time, I can make an effort.

What will I strive to be? What will you strive to be? Hero, or villain?