Hero's Journey

 


This week we studied a speech called "A Hero's Journey".  According to the speech, a Hero’s Journey means “to live every moment of your life like it matters, because it does. It means to live as if you have an important mission, because you do. It means seeing struggles as adventures, and setbacks as lessons… what matters most isn’t the prize at the end, but how the hero has changed in the process.” 

This week’s lesson has once again caused me to do a lot of soul searching and pondering. Especially when I read this line at the end of the speech. “If you resist the hero’s call, you will find that your greatest horror in life isn’t failure, but waking up at fifty or sixty years old and realizing you’ve wasted your life.” Being that I am 45 and have spent my life focusing on and raising my children, I question myself often if I have wasted my life. 

In this speech, they have some great questions one should ask themselves.

• Did I contribute something meaningful? 

• Was I a good person? 

• Who did I love?

• Who loved me?

I would like to share a light bulb moment that I had this week. As I thought this week about these 4 questions and how I would personally answer them, I kept coming back to a conversation I had years ago with a dear friend. She knew the struggles I was having at the time with my teenage boys, one of my boys was actually spending time in detention when she gave me this advice. I had hit the ultimate low and she told me “I needed to learn to love them where they are right now not where I wanted them to be”.  Over the years I have tried to apply this great advice to many of my difficult times and struggles with people.

While pondering this week's lesson, the thought came to me, “You need to love yourself where you are at right now, not where you think you should be or where others think you should be.” Since having this thought, I have gained a new appreciation for my life. My boys and husband and other family members know that I love them. How, because I have chosen to treat them with kindness and respect. 

By loving myself now for who I am,  I have been able to look back and see how far I have come. I can see the ups and downs in my life. I can see the pitfalls and triumphs. Through loving myself for who I am now, I can see how the Lord has been challenging me and molding me to become something more. I am not paralyzed by my shortcomings.

Loving me for who I am now, does not make it so that I feel as though my life is complete. It is the opposite! I am motivated to grow and do more. To be more kind and to stretch and become someone I never have imagined I could become. I may not move mountains, or be rich and famous. But I can be ME!

I want to leave this one last quote given from this week's speech. Something for you to ponder: 

“Failure, once so feared, seen in reverse will only make you stronger.”  

Christie


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Letting Go of Dreams

Image
  When we were kids, we dream of becoming anything and everything. As I read this week about Randy Pausch and his childhood dreams. I was reminded of some of my childhood dreams of becoming: an astronaut, and a Doctor. Unlike Randy Pausch, I have not accomplished any of my dreams. I was impressed by how he kept his dreams at the forefront and reality in his life. He found ways to make them happen, they became his lifelong quests. He didn’t let opposition and other people’s views, or opinions come in the way of what he wanted and dreamed of becoming. His dreams became the driving force in his life. Why haven’t my dreams become a reality? It wasn’t as though they were not realistic or unattainable but along the way, they no longer became my dreams. In the 1980's being an astronaut was almost everyone’s dream. But I remember in 5 th grade the day that dream no longer became a dream for me. It was January 28, 1986, I had gone into class to grab something during lunch and remem...
Read more

What Type of Leader Will You Become?

Image
  "Brothers and sisters, it is destiny to live in a remarkable time. It is a time of turmoil and great wickedness, but also a time of miracles and heavenly blessings. With your future in mind, we have sought to prepare you to become disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ and leaders in our families, in the Church, and in the world around you. President Kim B. Clark This week we studied leadership in my Entrepreneurship class. I am sure I just like many of you who have had their share of varying experiences of being a leader and interacting with a leader. We have all had the so-called leader who was more of a dictator and then those leaders that made an impact on our lives for good. Those are the leaders that we remember their names and most importantly how they made us feel. On the flip side, most of us had had the experience of being the leader. I can’ only speak from my own experience but I have had both negative and positive experiences of being a leader.  Some of those times I...
Read more