Living the Hero's Journey Read online

  Life Isn’t Easy

  If you want to take a quick breather from life’s demands, relax in the knowledge that we are all in this together in different ways, for different reasons, on different parts of the path. If someone else’s life looks easier or better, it just may be because of the eyes with which we view them. They could be part of your lesson. You could be part of theirs.

  The truth is, life isn’t easy. Don’t expect it to be. If it were easy, you wouldn’t learn much about yourself. And isn’t that the point of the journey? To improve yourself so you can enhance the lives of future generations and leave the world just a little bit better than the way you found it. To go from merely existing on the surface of life to immersing yourself in the depths of a life well lived.

  If you’re paying attention, the lessons learned pay dividends. Knowing yourself well, understanding why you are here, and embracing your purpose, uncover the path you are meant to follow. Sharing your gifts and talents, harmonizing with the world around you, and living from the heart smooth the bumps along the way. It’s not easy but it is rewarding.

  Welcome to the adventure of a lifetime: living the Hero’s Journey.

  PART I

  Date With Destiny

  MYTHS, MOVIES, AND MEANING

  J ohn and Jane share a marriage that has become less than exciting and more than predictable. Negotiating the landscape of life has slowly transformed their love into more of a business arrangement than a marriage. Their once incendiary sexual chemistry now barely simmers on the back burner.

  You might say John and Jane Smith are your average married couple, living ordinary lives in a garden-variety suburb, working ho-hum jobs. But each is hiding something that marriage counseling isn’t going to fix. Secretly, they are both highly skilled assassins totally unaware of each other’s expertise and cunning. A spark of excitement enters their marriage when they are hired to take each other out . . . and not on a Friday night date. This is their date with destiny.

  On their mission to kill each other, they learn much about themselves and more about each other than they ever discovered in five or six years of marriage. The Smiths take the concept of a marital spat to a whole new level as they fire insults and accusations while shooting their house to shambles. In the end, love prevails. And together, Mr. and Mrs. Smith fight for their marriage by fending off an army of bad guys, bullets, and bombs. The ongoing sessions with the marriage counselor don’t hurt, either.

  The heroes of this movie are Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie). This action-adventure film was a box-office smash. For the average moviegoer, however, the film is more than just two hours in the dark eating popcorn. It is a journey of adventure, ordeals, and transformation. The path followed by the filmmakers is a narrative structure known as the Hero’s Journey; a template of storytelling that spans the ages.

  Mythologist Joseph Campbell called it the monomyth; the one literary element used the world over, with countless variations and a myriad of outcomes. While it may be familiar to think of mythological heroes as being from Ancient Greece, the heroes of today’s feature films are reading from the same script—the Hero’s Journey.

  CHAPTER 1

  Lights, Camera, Action!

  A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. ~ Christopher Reeves (1952–2004)

  T he Studio of the Universe is making a motion picture about your life, and guess who’s playing the lead role? You!

  You are the hero of your life. Who else could be? Sure, there are those leading men and women in films, books, and television whom you might like to emulate. But in the movie that is your life, you’re it. You are responsible for what happens—and what doesn’t. You decide who gets cast in which roles and even the lines you speak. Ultimately, you determine how well you do at the box office of life.

  It may seem odd that we need to explore our role in our own life, but there is more here than meets the eye. How many times have you been someone for someone else and knew you were not being the real you? How many times have you done something for someone else that you knew wasn’t congruent behavior for you? Maybe you are in that position right now.

  You get to write your own script while immersing yourself in this book. Truth be told, you’ve been writing it all along. You get to be the you who is inside kicking and screaming to get out. The you who has always been there without a voice and finally gets to step up to the call. The you seeking your date with destiny. Life will never be fulfilling until this happens. Somehow, this doesn’t come as a shocking news bulletin to you. You’ve known this subconsciously for some time now. Today you begin a new journey—a Hero’s Journey.

  Summon the Heroes

  A classic figure of Greek and Roman mythology, the hero is often presented to us as an individual of great strength and skill who faces increasingly difficult challenges and always manages to summon the courage and fortitude to vanquish his enemies and please the gods.

  Hercules is one such hero whose strength and fortitude were much admired. He was the strongest of all mortals and even stronger than some of the gods. When the Olympians triumphed over the Giants, it was Hercules who was the deciding factor.

  Achilles was a hero with an unusual birth experience. His mother wanted to make him immortal, so she held him by his heel and dipped her newborn in the river Styx. Achilles’ heroics came into prominence during the Trojan War, in which he commanded 50 ships. The hero was ultimately killed with a poison arrow that landed on Achilles’ heel, the only part of his body that wasn’t touched by the waters.

  Hercules and Achilles—like all mythological heroes—garnered great strength and skills while facing increasingly difficult challenges. How is this so different from your life? You are constantly bettering your skills and becoming stronger with each increasingly difficult challenge. You are the hero of your life!

  Admiring the heroism of others is inspiring and natural. There are no surrogate heroes, however, who can be tapped on the shoulder to live your life—even if you believe they could do it better than you’re doing it. In today’s armchair society, we tend to look up to our heroes when what we need to do is look within.

  Looking within is not something we are accustomed to doing. We live in a culture where meeting our outer needs occurs without much effort. We enjoy extensive public services, a convenient utility infrastructure, and an efficient and streamlined food distribution system. Things just show up for us when we need them. We need water; we turn on a faucet and there it is. We need light; we just flip a switch. We’re hungry and want to eat; someone cooks us food and brings it to our table. We want to talk to someone halfway around the world; we tap a few buttons on our cell phone. Our needs are met before we can even register a desire.

  It almost seems appropriate, given our on-demand environment, that we look to the nightly news to deliver the hero of the day. It certainly doesn’t need to be us. We have outsourced just about everything else in our lives. We can outsource this.

  It seems counterintuitive to consider luxuries and comforts as barriers to a life well lived. But are they not numbing us to a sense of adventure, a sense that we can be and should be our best selves—not merely surviving, but living to the highest order?

  It’s time to step up—to be the hero—and to do it in a meaningful way. We each have a date with destiny that cannot be denied or delayed. Outsourcing is not an option.

  Character is Destiny

  Your role in this action-adventure is that of the hero. Don’t be intimidated. Your character does not follow in the footsteps of Achilles, Supergirl, or Ironman. In fact, attempting to chart your course along anyone else’s path—no matter how much you admire them—only leads you away from your destiny. Regardless of their perceived super powers, others are no match for your uncommon gifts, talents, and abilities. Uncover your unique brand of heroism, and you will find yourself quickly marching in the right direction. How you interpret and expres
s this boldness of spirit defines your character.

  While the hero is the character you play, character is also a determining factor in defining your destiny. The character required here emanates from your essence: your individual nature, who you really are.

  Destiny and fate are often presented as predetermined from an outside force and as being unchangeable. It may be easier for some to believe we have no choice. If what we think, believe, and do isn’t going to change anything, why bother trying? Ironically, life appears simple when someone else calls the shots, makes the rules, and decides the outcome.

  Greek philosopher Heraclitus had a different point of view. He concluded that one’s future was determined by his inner spirit, proclaiming, “Character is destiny.” The traits, qualities, and reputation you develop over a lifetime directly impact where you land on your legacy.

  In the theater, however, Greek tragedies would have none of this. The main character was ultimately challenged by the unforeseen actions of the gods, over which there was no control and no hope. The protagonist was not going to outwit, outplay, or outlast fate. The main character was not a survivor in these plays, as the gods were the heroes.

  This was Greece in the fifth century BC. Greek tragedies were an offshoot of ancient rites in honor of Dionysus. Son of Zeus and the last of 12 gods accepted into Mount Olympus, Dionysus was god of the arts and theater. But modern plays, including screenplays, are no longer limited to one of 12 heroes. And heroes are no longer limited to individuals with Herculean strength and Athenian skills.

  As the main character—and hero—on this journey, the transformation from who you are to who you will become directly influences your path. The ebb and flow of the deep waters of your soul determine the course of your destiny.

  On the Shoulders of Giants

  Discovering your destiny is elusive, at best. As we shall come to understand in the pages that follow, we pursue with a vengeance what is already lying calmly within our grasp. On some level, we all have a sense of destiny. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be asking the crucial questions. Wouldn’t it be so much easier, though, if we just had someone to ask?

  Joseph Campbell once said, “Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.”

  We are afraid of what we don’t understand, and as an “intelligent” species, we’re clueless when it comes to nurturing and cherishing our inner life. Going inward and downward—seeking one’s calling and searching for meaning and significance—are time-honored practices in other cultures. In our contemporary “more is better” society, spirituality is less appreciated, less valued, and less understood than celebrating the outer displays of success.

  Isaac Newton, a true visionary of his time (the late 1600s), was a man looking in many directions for answers to questions most people didn’t even know to ask. He is regarded as one of the greatest scientists and mathematicians who ever lived. When accused of stealing his hypothesis of light, Newton offered, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

  We would all do well to stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us. It is where we will find the best view and catch the best wind. Our journey inward will require both.

  CHAPTER 2

  Power of Myth

  Don’t be satisfied with the myths that come before you, unfold your own myths. ~ Rumi

  M ythological tales are often viewed as something that happened long ago, if at all. Myths, legends, and rituals engender images of history that often harken back to medieval times. Many great stories come to us from this era, including the stories about King Arthur, the folklore related to Robin Hood, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

  To fully understand and appreciate the power of myth, we follow the man who has blazed the trail for us, mythologist Joseph Campbell. Throughout his adult life, he read and researched legends and myths from varied cultures and civilizations over the course of human history. To his amazement, they all shared a common thread—a basic pattern or framework that still lends itself to great storytelling. He called the structure the Hero’s Journey.

  The story of the hero has been told and retold since the beginning of time. Indigenous cultures used the oral tradition. Today the hero lives in every form of media, from literature to television to video games.

  The Hero’s Journey, as it manifests in various cultures, chronicles the notion that all mystical traditions call men and women into a deeper awareness of the very act of living itself. Myths guide us through trials and traumas from birth to death. These ancient stories have supported humanity, built civilizations, and informed religions over millennia.

  Joseph Campbell’s fame increased substantially in the late 1970s when George Lucas publicly acknowledged Campbell’s influence on his creation of the motion picture Star Wars. The two became fast friends. I was first introduced to Campbell’s work in a series of discussions he filmed at Skywalker Ranch with Bill Moyers. The interviews were videotaped just before Campbell’s death in October 1987 and, as such, exemplify a lifetime of knowledge and wisdom.

  The African proverb, “When an elder dies, a library burns,” has never rung truer. Moyers’ television series The Power of Myth was broadcast the following spring and brought Campbell his broadest audience. The scholar and teacher was fittingly profiled in The New York Times as “a figure of heroic proportions.”

  Finding Your Path

  The man who coined the term, the Hero’s Journey would be the first to tell you that “the path” has been here all along. The Hero with a Thousand Faces reveals that all myths, regardless of time or culture, follow the same basic structure. There are no new stories, Campbell argues, just the same stories retold in new and different ways.

  In the hands of talented screenwriters and novelists, the Hero’s Journey is a compelling storytelling template. It provides a solid structure upon which to hang dynamic plot points, introduce engaging predicaments, and build a dramatic conclusion.

  Many films are based on the framework of the Hero’s Journey. Star Wars, ET, Dances with Wolves, Terms of Endearment, Titanic, Shrek, and Avatar all use the storytelling template of the Hero’s Journey.

  The template is both a powerful way to look at our lives and a metaphor that instructs us on how to lead an extraordinary, meaningful existence. Metaphors embed wisdom and information within the context of a story. From major motion pictures to bestselling fiction to beloved children’s books, the crucial components of myths, stories, and fairy tales are embedded with the magic and metaphors found buried within the Hero’s Journey.

  But don't expect to see a definitive formula or rigid structure here. The journey would not be enchanting or compelling if it were familiar and predictable. A story that keeps our interest is one we can't anticipate. The same holds true for the Hero’s Journey of our personal lives. Often, the path we choose ends up being very different from the path that chooses us. Or, as French poet Jean de La Fontaine observed, “A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”

  This was my experience. I did so poorly in school I avoided anything thing that looked like formal education. The moment I graduated high school I swore I’d never enter another classroom. Decades later I would find myself embracing an unrecognized and undeclared love for learning. Little did I know I possessed the teacher archetype and the destiny that came with it. In the beginning, I had no one to give me direction and no map to consult. I didn’t even know there was a life path to be found. What I did know is that I loved the movies.

  The messages, meanings, and metaphors encapsulated in our favorite entertainment mediums are laden with personal treasures for us to uncover and explore. Dig deep enough and you discover wisdom and an understanding of who the true hero is of those stories.

  Spiritual Warrior

  Michael Bernard Beckwith talks about the profound inner search b
eing like an adventure for the spiritually courageous, for those he calls spiritual warriors. In his book Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul’s Potential, he goes on to say, “It is an inner trek that takes us down a road we have not walked before. It is where nothing is avoided . . . and everything is faced.”

  Life is full of inner mysteries, turmoil, and uncertainty. Many of the traditions and rituals that supported us through difficult times have disappeared in favor of a more “sophisticated” lifestyle. Rites of passage, sabbaticals, vision quests, spiritual journeys. Who has the time?

  The fallout from technological advances, mass production, and the better-faster-more life has come at the expense of our souls. Sifting through the rubble and debris of what our throwaway society considers an advanced culture makes locating our path almost unimaginable, even when it is right under our feet.

  Looking to the Hero’s Journey grounds us in a simpler time. Standing at the roughly sawn wooden table, we unroll the parchment and examine the map by candlelight. From this vantage point, we see the bigger picture and gain perspective on who we are and why we’re here. Plotting our course into the unknown is invigorating, even if it means there’s a chance we’ll fall off the edge of the Earth. Especially if there’s a chance.

  Learning about what makes us tick enhances our ability to self-motivate, self-manage, and self-respect. We possess the capacity to plan, monitor, and guide a life course confidently determined of our own volition. Understanding our place in the world gets us halfway to making the world a better place.