The fables, however, show us a different path: their characters, albeit reluctantly, have to go on an adventure and face the unknown. It is a dangerous journey, often undertaken inadvertently, without being aware of what it involves, of the difficulties to come. During the journey, each character will meet mentors who will help them acquire specific wisdom and skills to keep going. He will suffer injuries and setbacks, and will often be on the verge of failing, throwing in the towel, or dying in the attempt ... but if he survives, he will become stronger and stronger as he becomes more difficult. In the end, if you manage to overcome difficulties and defeat your particular dragon, the ordinary person who answered the call to adventure will experience an inner growth and discover that he had latent powers that help him fulfill his mission. He was unaware of these powers because he had never needed to use them. He had a sleeping hero inside. Now he will be able to return home, to the normal world, integrating within him that hero that he had inside. Share with the rest of your community the wisdom that has emerged in him.
It is no coincidence that all cultures have found an identical way of telling human stories, a "monomite" that revolves around the same axis: the search and awakening of the strength and wisdom that we all carry within.
They are powerfully attractive to all of us. Why? Because they echo our shared humanity, our own inner journeys, our demons, temptations, doubts, failures and difficulties, and invite us to travel through them by the hand of the fictional character. We all know that we carry much more resources inside than we usually use. Through the journey of any literary hero, in any corner of the world, humans recognize our own longings and vulnerabilities, and we find a model that inspires us and reminds us that perhaps our inner hero has yet to awaken. When our favorite literary hero, lonely and scared, hesitates before going to rescue a princess or the magic stone stolen by some villain, we feel with him the sadness of losing what is familiar or dear to us, the fear of having to change course, to face the unknown, the loneliness of an inhospitable world ... And not only do we identify with the fears and doubts of these heroes, but we also learn through their adventures, which are the metaphor that helps us to understand that any change that haunts us, with its stages and tests that must be overcome with effort and courage, is also an invitation to grow as we reach our goal. And we learn, through each stage of the hero's journey, to walk our lives from a broader, more inspiring dimension.
Like literary characters, the trials we undergo throughout a lifetime —new truths and new circumstances, with their disappointments, loss of friendships, prestige, or assets — can be the gateway to the possibility of getting rid of toxic relationships, embarking on new paths, making new friends, over and over again . And it is that we do not go through a single journey of the hero, but multiple trips and tests that make us move forward and grow throughout a lifetime.
But it also happens that, instead of giving us that vital push towards a new future, we can remain paralyzed and locked in a rigid and barren daily life, convinced that only extraordinary people are capable of answering the call to adventure. And mistakenly believing that only a select few are capable of being heroes. Because we all are at one time or another, in one way or another.
Ordinary means "belonging to order, to something regulated." Something or someone extraordinary goes out of the expected script, either of their own free will, well, as usually happens in life and also in fables, because circumstances compel us to do so and we have to grow and acquire new skills to adapt to new ones. circumstances.
One of the most important life lessons that universal myths teach us is that extraordinary people do not exist. There are only ordinary people who do extraordinary things. History and literature show us that heroes are forged with ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance.
Being or acting in an extraordinary way is not an innate gift or a special talent: it is a conscious act, something that people decide to do, a behavior that we can try to learn, a different way from the usual, flexible and courageous way of thinking and behave at any given time, in circumstances that may seem very normal. In fact, most of our daily challenges are not dramatic challenges, they are changes in work, at home, in the city, they are specific difficulties to make ends meet, they are the rush and the burdens to fulfill our responsibilities at work And in the family, it is the painful fights and misunderstandings with family and friends, the challenges and professional promotions, having to take more responsibility at work, learning to take care of a child, taking care of your parents as they get older. ... That is why Joseph Campbell said that anyone can be reflected and take the hero's journey: a soldier on a mission, a doctor in an emergency department, a woman who is going to give birth, a social worker in a troubled center, a person who takes risks to defend a cause, a brother who donates his kidney or marrow to another, a nurse in an oncology plant ... It is enough to train and use qualities and abilities that we carry inside , asleep, to access the extraordinary world, to accompany you on your hero's journey.
We can all be heroes, each in his own way. If you want to visualize this journey step by step, here is an outline, widely used in many writing schools as a narrative model. Think, for example, of a fictional character as popular as Indiana Jones. His ordinary world is the university, but the call to adventure drags him, even if he resists, to search for the lost ark or whatever. On his way, he will find allies and enemies, he will have to pass many tests, including his own ghosts. And finally, wiser and braver, you can achieve your goal and return home.