The Hero’s Journey was originally coined by Joseph Campbell, an American professor who studied the myths across different world cultures and found that they had common patterns of story woven through them.
For some reason, these patterns of story are so prevalent in our human psyche that even today, the movies and novels of our time still follow it. It’s almost as if this story pattern reflects our everyday lives and journeys so much that we build it back into the stories we tell.
Find yourself on The Hero’s Journey, and you find yourself. Where are you on your Hero’s Journey? The Hero’s Journey first starts with…
The Ordinary World
You begin in the mundane world, where everything is status quo. Or is it? Everything seems ok, and that’s just the problem, isn’t it? Everything is just ok. But sometimes, a soft little voice inside your head tells you that there should be something more. You can’t quite articulate it yet, but you just get this nagging feeling, maybe it’s you, or maybe it’s everyone else, but life can’t be just about this…
In the words of Morpheus from The Matrix:
It’s that feeling you have had all your life. That feeling that something was wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.
Where are you right now in your life? Is it where you want to be? Or do you get the sense that something’s just not quite right, that something needs to be changed? Maybe it’s not about the external environment, do you feel that it’s you who needs changing?
You feel it, don’t you? That there should be something more.
Listen to the voice that seperates you from your ordinary world, because it’s asking you to take a step further on your Hero’s Journey. What does it say?
March 4th, 2006 at 1:06 am
My voice told me to bring smiles to faces of the people I meet and in return, enjoy a happy, meaningful life.
It’s always so tough to take the first step on a journey that we know it might takes forever to finish. But right now, it feels like the 1st step has to be taken or else we will keep wondering when to take it.
I think changes to my life always begin with self first. Make a good check on my self and set the bearings and reach out, I will.
July 23rd, 2007 at 6:37 pm
We are doing this program at school, there have been some tough questions but i think its for our own good. well done Mr. Campbell.