There’s an interesting article on CNN.com about the 10 things you can learn about heroes from action movies. Below are the four that I feel are most true.

1. Heroes don’t always know that they’re heroes. Sometimes a wise old Jedi or a magic owl shows up to inform you of your destiny. Sometimes you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time and you have to do the right thing. But sooner or later you will be called, and your life will change forever.

2. Heroism is a lonely, thankless vocation. Poor Spidey. Poor Batman. Poor Harry Potter. Ultimately, each is alone with his powers and responsibilities, burdened with expectations and misunderstood by even his closest friends and allies. Yes, it’s cool to be that special, but the chances to really enjoy it — to turn invisible, to fly through the air, to hang upside down and kiss Kirsten Dunst — are fleeting and few. The reward for being a hero is not fame or adulation but the quiet satisfaction of having done good.

3. When the going gets tough, the usual rules don’t apply. Your editors, commanding officers, supervisors, and teachers and other authority figures will insist on routines and protocols. You will try to explain that flesh-eating zombies, a psychotic super-villain, a global conspiracy, or an extraterrestrial eco-catastrophe (I’m speaking metaphorically here, more or less) calls for extra-ordinary measures, and you’ll most likely be punished for your insubordination. Until, that is, your bosses need rescuing. And then they will take credit for your bold, imaginative thinking.

4. It’s always personal. The bad guys will find a way to get to your spouse, your lover, your children, your mother — the people who matter to you most. And your professional motives will thus be doubled by the more intimate imperatives of rescue and revenge. Your job is never just your job, and you never do it for its own sake, but rather because it’s connected, sometimes painfully, to everything else that’s important to you. Not just money or (if you’re lucky) health insurance, but meaning, passion, conviction — maybe even truth and justice.