I went back to a video I made some time ago about the hero's journey. It was one of those early experiments with AI and the first models I was trying out. Watching it now makes me smile: the technology changed a lot in a very short time, and so did the way I use it and tell stories.
The subject still interests me, though. There's something recognizable about a person who ventures beyond what they know, discovers they weren't quite as prepared as they thought, and returns with a different perspective. That can happen on an enormous adventure or while doing something as ordinary as learning a skill, sharing your work, or changing a habit.
Where the idea comes from
Joseph Campbell developed the concept of the monomyth in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, published in 1949. He proposed a pattern shared by heroic tales across cultures. Its core has three movements: separation, initiation, and return, as explained by the Joseph Campbell Foundation.
The idea is often summarized this way: someone leaves their familiar world, faces trials, and returns changed, bringing something they can share.
That doesn't establish that all human stories or our lives follow a single formula. I find it useful as a metaphor: a way to ask questions about what we're experiencing. If it helps us understand a stage of life, great. If we have to force the experience to fit, we can let the framework go.
Leaving the familiar can be a small step
In a film, the adventure might begin with a mysterious message. In everyday life, it usually has a smaller production budget: a curiosity that keeps returning, a project waiting to happen, a feeling that you'd like to try something different.
The familiar world has advantages. You know your way around, what people expect of you, and what you're good at. Leaving means accepting that you'll be a beginner again for a while. Sometimes that's the most uncomfortable obstacle: no longer feeling competent at everything you do.
When I think about my first attempts at creating content with AI, I recognize something of that. There was a new possibility, and I wanted to see what I could do with it. I didn't know how the videos would turn out. Trying one gave me information for the next.
You can ask yourself what's making you curious and what a manageable first experiment would look like. You don't have to change jobs, move countries, or gamble your savings for the attempt to matter. Sometimes crossing the threshold means setting aside an afternoon and finishing a draft.
Difficulties show you what you need to learn
After you start comes a less photogenic stretch. What looked easy takes longer. A tool doesn't respond the way you expected. You show someone your work, and their comment stays with you.
It's tempting to read that friction as a sign that you're not cut out for it. Another possible reading is that you're now in contact with the actual work. You can begin to see what you need to learn, which expectations need adjusting, and where you need help.
That last part matters to me. The word “hero” can make us picture someone who solves everything alone. In our own changes, the people who explain, support us, or ask a timely question often matter a great deal. Accepting their help can be part of growing too.
Nor does every difficulty deserve persistence. If a path is causing harm, consuming resources you don't have, or no longer makes sense, reconsidering it is a valid decision. The metaphor can help you through uncertainty; it shouldn't require you to endure anything in the hope of a reward at the end.
Returning means bringing what you learned into your life
This is the part that interests me most today. An experience can be intense, but then Monday arrives. You return to your conversations, commitments, and usual ways of working. What remains of what you discovered?
Perhaps you learned to ask for help sooner. Perhaps you understood which tasks you enjoy and which you were doing out of habit. Or you found a way to explain something that could now help somebody else.
For me, revisiting those videos reveals decisions I gradually made: which formats I wanted to keep exploring, how I wanted to be present, and which subjects I wanted to develop at a slower pace. Some of that learning reaches the blog today. An experiment I made out of curiosity is still opening up a new conversation.
That return can be very concrete: changing a habit, sharing something you learned, or consistently applying a small decision. It doesn't need a grand revelation to have consequences.
A page to reflect on your own journey
If you'd like to use the idea, choose a change you're going through and write a few lines about these questions:
- Which part of the familiar am I leaving, and what would I like to keep?
- What did trying teach me that I couldn't know from the outside?
- Who is helping me, or whom could I ask for help?
- What do I want to bring from this experience into everyday life?
You don't have to find a perfect moral. You may be in the middle of something and not quite understand what it means yet. You can write that down too.
I like the hero's journey when it leaves room for that uncertainty. It lets us recognize that learning something new can shift how we see ourselves, and that sharing what we learn can give it value beyond our individual attempt.
Here's that video made while I was experimenting with AI. I look back on it fondly, both for what it was and for everything that changed afterward. Perhaps I'll return to this article one day and find another way to understand the journey. Sending you a hug.