Career Options Magazine

Heroes: they’re in our books, our movies, our video games and our imaginations. They occupy the central role in most, if not all, myths from various cultures. They are adventurers, navigating from one challenge to the next, narrowly averting disaster, and ultimately etching stories of courage and fortitude into our memories.

There are many metaphors that seem to describe life aptly, but none so compelling, nor so universal, as the metaphor of adventure. Joseph Campbell, the scholar who popularized the term “the hero’s journey,” saw enough common themes across myths from different cultures to propose the idea that all myth essentially relates back to the same basic pattern of a hero embarking on a harrowing journey.

In proposing this idea, Campbell provided a unifying theory for mythology. But his ideas also provide the foundation for some great career advice for students. So what does “the hero’s journey” really mean? If the adventure narrative is universal, how can we take advantage of it to move forward meaningfully in life?

You are the hero, and the adventure too

“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,” writes Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I doubt that many people would have a problem with thinking of themselves as a hero, but it might seem too easy and obvious to think of a career path as an adventure. But that’s because most people jump to the conclusion that a career is strictly an external journey, when in truth it has very internal, introspective components.

In fact, the “region of supernatural wonder” that Campbell speaks of resides within ourselves. The “fabulous forces” that we must overcome are our own personal demons: complacence, apathy, self-doubt, others’ expectations, and lack of confidence, to name just a few. They are the barriers to our self-awareness—the smoke and mirrors along the path towards discovery of our purpose in life. Only by looking within are we able to discover how we can make our most valuable contributions to the world, and to ourselves.

Okay… so what does it all mean?

Despite the fact that the mythology behind it is so old, the “career as a journey” metaphor is actually a relatively new concept. Since the industrial revolution, the dominant way of thinking about careers has been to move from one job to another. What the adventure metaphor suggests is that we shift from thinking of work as a series of jobs to seeing it as one continuous, lifelong journey. A significant part of that journey is a search for purpose—for what each of us seeks to contribute to the world through our work.

Of course, there aren’t any concrete steps on how to make this discovery, but many people are able to move forward on their own. They tend to be curious and open to new experiences. They take the occasional risk, and allow themselves to make mistakes and learn from them. They always seem to be taking action. Most importantly, they take time to reflect on their experiences and how they want the chapters of their lives to be written.

When all is said and done, that’s really the key word: reflect. Discovering what’s meaningful for you, and how you want to contribute to the world with your work, is an ongoing process of reflecting on the actions you take, the work that you do, and the knowledge you gain, each and every day. Over time, you might just look back and notice that your career has been one heck of an adventure.

David Lindskoog is a career advisor at Simon Fraser University and blogs for the Career Options website.

For more information, please visit: careeroptionsmagazine.com