Express Yourself--Looking Up

This week's Express Yourself Weekly Meme asks: Who do you look up to?

I have written in the past about persons who I consider to be heroes, and why they are heroes. I find the people I most admire fall into 3 groups:
creators, overcomers, and achievers.  

Creators are the artistic people: the writers, the teachers, the composers.  They give me the ideas to live my lives by.  Some of these people are public figures, and some are not.  I have often said that my muse for life is Joseph Campbell, but I also never would have found him if Bill Moyers hadn't believed there was a place on television for intelligent conversation about serious topics (at least on PBS.) When it comes to musicians, both my husband and my best friend are very talented composers and musicians and my daughter is working at it (and "work" is definitely the word for it) so I have it in my own  backyard.

Overcomers (yes I know, I created a new word there) are the people who have had life throw stuff at them and kept on keeping on.  They surmount obstacles and difficulties of life and just keep moving on.  I can name a lot of public figures I admire for this, but this is also where the people in private life become heroes as well, as I wrote last Mother's Day. 

Achievers are the people we often think of first as heroes.  But as I have said before, I admire such people not only for their achievements, but for what they do with their success. Do they leverage their fame or success for the benefit of others?  Edmund Hillary became famous for climbing Mt Everest, but I think of him as a hero because he spent the rest of his live advocating for enviormental  causes and for the people of Nepal. When I think of this category in my own life, I think about my son, who recently became an Eagle Scout. Its a great achievement, but its also a preparation for life.  So many well known persons from Neil Armstrong to Mike Rowe to Steven Spielberg to Gerald Ford  have been Eagle Scouts. They all learned to take their achievements and make the world a better place.  And that's the kind of person I look up to.

This post is part of Express Yourself Weekly Meme.  To see whom other bloggers are looking up to visit the link up here.