Karl's Blog: Following Your Bliss

Over the past couple of years, I've taken to regularly going to bed with one DVD playing on loop in the background.

It's of Joseph Campbell, being interviewed in "The Power of Myth" by Bill Moyers.

For those that don't know, Campbell was a mythologist, and creator of the famed "Hero's Journey" model -- a formula for all myths, used to help create mega-blockbuster movies today.

He's a sweet, gentle, grandfather-like figure that speaks pure wisdom.

His Hero's Journey (or the monomyth) model applies to practically every myth on the planet. In brief, Campbell describes the process in his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces, as:

"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

The Hero's Journey has seven distinct stages... and some time ago, I had a powerful thought.

These myths are there to tell us how to live our lives. Of course.

But, by seeing where you are on the Hero's Journey scale yourself, you can also tell what's coming up -- and how to reach the next level.

Listening deeper to the interviews with Campbell, I now realize he thought the exact same thing.

And so this teacher of deep mythology ultimately made some profound discoveries about life itself.

Core to his teaching was the idea of "following your bliss" -- or, as Lester Levenson would say it, "finding your freedom."

In one of the interviews, Campbell profoundly comments:

"When you follow your bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors, and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else."

He also says that the hero - You - will always get the adventure they're ready for.

Wow.

What does that mean to you?

Are you getting the adventure you're ready for?

Or, to put it another way, are YOU ready for your adventure?

If not, prepare yourself for it -- and it shall happen.

Here are a few other quotes from his work that truly inspired me...

"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."

"The way to find out about happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you are really happy -- not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what is called following your bliss."

"Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself."

"Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain."

"Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is Whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning."

"Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble."

"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are."

"When we talk about settling the world's problems, we're barking up the wrong tree. The world is perfect. It's a mess. It has always been a mess. We are not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives."

"The world is full of people that have stopped listening to themselves or have listened only their neighbors to learn what they ought to do, how they ought to behave, and what the values are they should be living for."

Think about today's post deeply. Maybe even read some of Campbell's work.

And if you really get it... It might just change your life.