HIPS: Each Of Us Can Embark On our Own Hero’s Journey

Published with permission

By Bryan Hyde

How differently would you live your life if you sincerely believed that you were in the middle of your own hero’s journey?

A hero’s journey begins with a personal calling or purpose that leads the would-be hero out of ordinary life and into a journey of personal growth.

As the hero travels through the tests, traps and trials, mentors and helpers provide needed insight and encouragement. Eventually, the hero faces an ultimate test that requires his or her purest efforts. 

When that test has been met and overcome, the hero may return to ordinary life, empowered with legitimate strength and abilities that can be used to help others.

Once this pattern is pointed out and recognized, it’s nearly impossible not to see it at work in movies, plays, books, songs and other stories. 

But this doesn’t mean that it should be limited to abstract storytelling. It’s a call each of us may hear.

Our hero’s journey should not be understood as a pathway to status or some self-aggrandizing Walter Mitty fantasy. 

It should instead speak to the timeless need for individuals who have consciously chosen a journey that forges them into the kind of people who are willing to change the world.

It’s about becoming the best version of ourselves through a long, challenging process known only to the person who is undergoing the journey. 

It is a highly individualized experience requiring humility, perseverance and a serious willingness to learn.

The hero’s journey is how truly great individuals are produced.

* Hyde In Plain Sight is written by KDXU personality Bryan Hyde. Catch his daily HIPS vignette at 7:50-ish every weekday morning on KDXU and listen to The Bryan Hyde Show weekends at 7 p.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday nights.