10/28/2025
If you’re stuck in a rut, you might try going on a physical or mental adventure, Arthur C. Brooks wrote in 2024: “Even if your heroic exploits prove to be more uncomfortable or painful than you expected, that, too, is part of your journey.” https://theatln.tc/4emNqMiI
In 2017, a scholar in Australia proposed a provocative hypothesis: Materially comfortably humans, the researcher proposed, are still drawn to difficult, even dangerous tasks. Why? Because “the universe is at once life-giving and deadly,” and therefore, from the outset, “humans needed to embrace risk to flourish,” Brooks explained. This characteristic has also been reinforced by culture. In 1949, for example, Joseph Campbell laid out the structure of the “monomyth.” In these narratives, Brooks wrote, the “hero’s journey” begins “with a call to adventure, proceeds through a series of difficult trials and dangerous obstacles, and finally ends in triumph.”
Framing one’s life as a quest can lead to positive transformation, Brooks wrote. These kinds of challenging adventures don’t necessarily need to be physical in nature to be beneficial; they can also be mental. For instance, one way to harness the power of the hero’s journey is by using the narrative as a way to reframe your difficulties. “This can be especially powerful if you have recently endured an event or hardship from which you’re still struggling to recover,” Brooks wrote. By recasting your hardships, he writes, “you can embark on the second stage of your journey: learning to overcome emotional obstacles and getting stronger through your pain.”
Another way to channel the hero’s-journey narrative, especially “if your life simply feels dull and gray, is to go find a challenge that is worthwhile, hard, maybe even scary,” Brooks continued. This could include announcing your intention to start a job search, going back to school, or signing up for a half-marathon. “Your adventure should have a goal, it is true, but it is called a hero’s journey for a reason,” Brooks writes. “Happiness comes not from the blip that is a moment of victory but from the long arc of living, learning, and loving.”
🎨: Jan Buchczik