The Hero's Journey

Many of us fail to recognize the dormant hero that lies in each one of us. We are taught to believe that in order to be a hero we must perform some truly noble act or possess supernatural abilities. Only then, we feel, will our lives be validated and some higher duty fulfilled. The greatest heroes in our world from a historical perspective, however, have at first been the greatest thinkers. Their abilities had very little to do with their physical prowess and everything to do with their beliefs in their own capabilities. Mother Teresa, Gandhi and Martin Luther King- all three had faith that they could change the world for the better. They bought into the fact that one idea acted upon with great intensity and relentless commitment can change the world. None of these heroes had x-ray vision or the ability to become invisible. Yet, they all had the secret to heroism- faith in themselves.

Once we have faith we can do something special with our lives and flourish in the hearts of others. It all starts with the awareness of your heroic potential. We are all programmed to do precisely this- for these are the ingredients of living a life of value and is every hero’s destination. The secret to living a heroic life is really no secret at all. All we need to do is focus on performing small acts of kindness each and everyday. These awaken our heroic ‘sleeping-giant’ capabilities. It is in these acts of kindness that the hero’s journey is undertaken. When we do the little things with great love and attention, then the things we think of as big we will happen upon. The big things are those which are undertaken by heroes and are the capability of the hero that lies in each one of us.
The hero lurking in each one of us yearns to be bigger than our body permits. Every one of us craves meaning and the feeling of fulfillment. These are the feelings that will flood our hearts with passion and engage the best that we have within ourselves. In order to do so we must become aware of our greatness. Discovering our greatness as a human being comes from thinking bigger than ourselves. This is the quest of all heroes. They all come to the realization of thinking of more than just themselves. There is tremendous power in conducting our lives in a way that will transcend ourselves. We should avoid being shallow, whining and complaining that the world isn’t taking care of us in order to accomplish this. Fairness is never measured on a calibrated scale. Instead, we should take care of our world and live out our days in a way that inspires compassion, kindness and concern for others, as all heroes do.
Heroic feats are accomplished by pedestrian acts such as holding the door open, smiling at a stranger and being willing to share with someone who is lacking, these are in fact the act that will display our heroic capability. These small acts will create the feelings of significance and the feeling of being larger than life. These small acts will lead us to a feeling of a higher duty being fulfilled.

We should abandon the restraints that keep our thoughts limited to just us and our actions insignificant and dare to see what our best selves really look like. Dare to see how you can make the world a better place. This is the wisdom of the true hero and is in each and every one of us.

We reflect back on our life as a collection of untried adventures proving that our ambition somehow has been extinguished, as we age.
“ One of the saddest experiences that can come to a human being is to awaken, gray-haired and wrinkled, near the close of an unproductive life, to the fact hat all through the years he has been using only a small part of himself.” V.W. Burrows

We feel we are empty shells missing the substance of our human existence. Our lives would’ve been different if we had acted upon each thoughtful inspiration which transpired in our heads. The greatest ails we experience from memories are those remembrances of things we failed to try to do. Failure is only the result of not attempting. We allow our fear to suppress our ambition when we fail to make an attempt. The definition of success isn’t about the numbers on the scoreboard, the amount in our bank account or the type of car we drive. It’s about doing away with untried adventures and living a life defined by exploration. It’s about stepping outside of our comfort zones. It’s about making the world a better place. It’s about realizing the manipulative effects the outside world has had on the inner happenings in our mind and reclaiming control. The one and only thing do have control over is our minds. The hero’s quest transpires on the inside and is merely reflected on the outside.
Joseph Campbell alludes to this when he discusses the first stage in the hero’s journey- retrospect. He talks about the ability to look at the experiences in our lives and distinguish commonalities. This is the power of our minds. It is a journey that takes place without the awareness of the existence of our bodies. It doesn’t entail supernatural qualities to reflect upon our lives, but it is a heroic endeavor. It allows us to discover the commonality of the cause of our reality. And the cause is the workings of our minds.
Jean Piaget, the Swiss Psychologist, also referenced this idea when he wrote about the phenomenon of reflective abstraction, more commonly known today as metacognition. It’s defined as the ability to think about your own thinking and is the first stepping stone in the heroic quest.
We can come to realize that we are indeed all heroes when we use metacognition. We can begin to take accountability for our circumstances once we become aware of our heroic capabilities.

The majority of the cause of everything that transpires in our lives-success, wealth, kindness, intelligence, humility is not found in the environment. Everyone with common circumstances would experience similar realities if this were the case. Instead, two individuals growing up in the same home, sharing the same mother and father, eating the same meals and attending the same schools create realities of varying degrees of success, wealth, kindness, intelligence and humility. Our neighborhood doesn’t so much determine our reality as do our thoughts. What is happening on the inside is a better determiner of our future success than what is happening on the outside.
This is the realization we come to when we use our metacognitive abilities. Reflecting on our own thinking allows us to discover the power of our minds and realize our heroic potential.
The third step to living your life like a hero comes by evaluating and changing your inner happenings by using positive thoughts, dreaming big dreams and running towards your fears.

The final step is to take action. Use the power of your mind to take this heroic action steps. The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has knowledge but no vision. What makes us human at the end of each and every day is the power each one of us possesses to choose our inner and therefore our outer happenings. The price of greater thinking is a greater responsibility for yourself, for those around you and for the world.
The noblest cause is the initiative is to work on yourself because it is in working on yourself that you make the world a better place. Self-actualization is a truly dignified quest.

We can then pass this message onto our children as we start to live our lives like heroes. For just like us, children’s destinies entail living for something more important than just ourselves. For even after we are physically absent from this world, the sparks we have ignited in the hearts and souls of others will continue to burn and inspire. The most important thing we can give our children is the inspiration to dream and see that success in life comes from living in a significant way- that is, a way that contributes to the world in some measurable way. Inspiration only transpires in our minds and is a result of true heroism. Measuring something allows us to see the effect we’ve created in the world. It is through change that we unveil self-love, self-respect and self-confidence. Our world hides these qualities away from us and it’s our responsibility as human beings to guide others into peeling away the layers that the world creates. These are layers of self-hate, lack of self-respect and a deficiency in self-confidence. These are the layers that the world has enveloped us in through its manipulative tendencies.