Saints And Heroes

The problem of course is to become the person you are intended to be. You are intended to be a good person. See MrAristotle on what it means to be a good person. Generally a good person is one who cultivates virtues. Virtues are simply good habits of behavior. The vir- part of virtue comes from the latin and means manly or as I choose to interpret it mankind-ly -- so to be a good man you must develop virtue.

One of the most effective ways to develop a skill is to have a mentor or a counselor that can show you the way. But good counselors are rare and hard to find. The next best thing is to have a set of role-models and actively imitate them. Your role model should be someone who has achieved what you want to achieve and did it well. This pattern is related to GhostsInUs. --RaySchneider

This only works if you're a conformist. It doesn't if you're either individual or contrarian. See ConformismVsIndividualism?.

See also: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?RoleModel for more discussion on Role Models

Actually I very much disagree with the notion that "this only works if you're a conformist" -- not sure who added that, but one ought to sign one's work. The point is that even a non-conformist can find models to emulate that are also non-conformists -- it is really a cop-out to suggest that there is any true individualism in the sense that anyone is wholly unlike anyone else. It is always true that we are more alike than unlike -- some are just more controversial or in-your-face. In a sufficiently large universe there will be no role that is wholly different from every other, so even the non-conformists will be conforming to something. Just look around at all the spiked hair, or the various styles the young adopt to be non-conformist. It often ends up as the most rigid conformity so as to be considered "cool." -- RaySchneider