Diony and his friends were playing football on the muddy little spot right outside the town, as they always were if they had any spare time. They had been playing for a while and all their clothes were dirty, none of their mothers would be very happy when they came home. They would be rather furious actually, they knew that. They were playing the only place they were allowed to play football (actually just in the weekends), as all the people in the town thought that it was a stupid thing to do – nothing useful. It was one of the only things he really enjoyed to be doing, and he always played with a big grin on his face. Diony wanted to be a big football star when he grew up. He wanted to earn a lot of money, so he could help everybody in his town getting out of this bad situation with little money and food. Every night he dreamt about playing football with Beckham and many other big players, but especially with Beckham. Beckham was his biggest idol in the world, if you don’t count his granny, that is. Diony was so proud of his granny, she was so tough and so nice. She had showed him almost everything he knew. Except from playing football, Beckham had thought him that trough the television.

David Beckham, Paris Hilton, Brad Pitt, Britney Spears... etc. They make so much money (or getting it from their daddies), that they probably don’t know how much money they actually have, all in all. If they wanted to buy a pair of jeans or anything else that costs thousands of dollars, they probably wouldn’t even think twice before they buy it. Even when they’re fully aware of that millions of people are starving. Is that really fair? That over half-a-billion children has to survive for less than 1 dollar a day, and some superstars make more money in one minute than poor people get in one full year? And what important things does a superstar do? Football stars are just kicking and passing a leather ball around to each other on a big grass field, trying to put it in a net, while protecting another net. What’s the point? It’s almost the same as we really can’t understand what the dog possibly could think is fun with bringing back the stick we threw. We’re doing these things because it amuses either one of us, we get entertained. And by cheering on a team in good and bad times, makes us feel like we’re a part of something bigger than just our useless individual lives. That’s probably why so many decided to join Hitler’s crazy stuff. Because of the feeling they got by joining something better and bigger (that’s what they thought though). But the most important thing superstars do is to be a hero and help us keep on dreaming. Help us dream of a better future and a better life.

Everybody needs heroes. Some have just one hero, and others have over one thousand or millions of heroes! There are two kinds of heroes, it’s the daily heroes and the big superstar heroes. They all make our lives better in one way or another. Daily heroes help us throughout the day. With their big smile and their very helpful advises they guide, help and protect us from our common daily nightmares. If you’re having a bad day, and somebody (it doesn’t really matters if it’s an unknown person or your little brother), smile to you, you’ll immediately feel better. From feeling blue to maybe go and make other people happy. A daily hero can be your grandmother, your friend, an unknown person, anyone or anybody from your daily life. They can smile, do things with you, or just look at you, I mean really look. Superstar heroes is a hero you don’t know personally, but you know what he or she stands for, and what they’re famous for or do. Superstar heroes help us keep dreaming of a better future and a better life. “He had nothing and was only 17 years old, but just look at him now! If he could do it, I’m sure I’ll manage it too!” That’s what we have superstars for, make people never keep dreaming.

I was on a vacation in Indonesia, and I noticed one thing that happened every sunset (except from everyone looking at the beautiful sunset). Right before sunset, all the boys in the village at the age of 10 to around 17, took an hour free from work and met on the beach to play football. I meet them a lot because I was about always on the beach around sunset. When they were walking down to the beach they always started to grin and laugh. The sunset was not like in Norway, when it can last for hours, but in Indonesia the sun was gone after not longer than half an hour. When they played, you could see that they all really enjoyed it. Sometimes you heard that they screamed either Beckham, Ronaldo or another football player’s name. I spoke to one of the guys, and he said that he and all of his mates dreamt of meeting Beckham and Ronaldo, and become the best football player in the world’s history. He also said that he knew that it was probably never going to happen to anyone of them, but that would never keep them from dreaming. They had discovered the true meaning of watching and learning from superstars.

Without the superstars a lot of people would have died (at least inside them) because they would have lost their dreams. And people’s hopes and dreams are the only thing that can’t be stolen. Without dreams, hopes easily fade away.

Smile to the world, and the world will smile back to you. (And maybe you’ll make somebody else’s day?)