The Call to Adventure
“What do you mean that I am the Ordinary World?” I asked.
“We mean just that,” Yewell explained. “The world you see around you is a reflection of who you are.”
“So it’s a reflection of me, but it’s not actually me.”
“It’s a reflection of you and it is you,” said Iman. “Have you ever heard the expression ‘as a man thinks in his heart so is he’?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there you go. The way you think defines who you are. Everything you see in the world around you is a thought you are having. Therefore, it is you.”
“Just as you are part of your environment,” Yewell added, “your environment is a part of you.”
“So we really are the world,” I said.
“If you’re not, who is?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I always just figured that I was me and the rest of the world was… well, the rest of the world.”
“The world is never at rest,” Iman said. “It is always moving, always flowing, always changing, and always evolving. The true call for the hero is to realize his part in helping to guide its movement in a positive direction, to give himself over to the flow, to adapt with the changes, and to assist in the evolution toward a better world.”
“Just as each of you begins as an ordinary person in an Ordinary World,” Yewell continued, “when you answer the Call to Adventure and realize the hero you are capable of being, you will become an extraordinary person in an Extraordinary World.”
“The Call to Adventure, huh?”
“Every hero’s got one,” said Iman. “In all actuality, you each have more than one.”
“How do you figure?”
“You wake up every day, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s your Call to Adventure. Every day of living is another opportunity to improve your world by improving yourself.”
“And to improve yourself by improving your world,” Yewell added.
“You make it sound so grandiose,” I said, “like it’s some sort of high falutin’ expedition or something.”
“That’s because it is,” Iman said. “Humanity has become so engrossed in its myths and hero stories that it has often become desensitized to the fact that you are capable of living out your mythologies in your own lives on a daily basis. Life is a grandiose expedition. Unfortunately, it has all too often become secondary to the myths with more entertainment value.”
“Well, they’re more exciting,” I argued.
“You have the possibility to create an entirely new world every day of your life,” said Yewell. “What could be more exciting than that? Every day you expand your mind and learn something new, the world as a whole grows in knowledge. Every day you consciously connect your soul to the universal Spirit, you achieve peace on Earth. Every day you perform some kind of physical labor, you build upon the progress of those who’ve come before you and help lay the foundation for those who will come after. And every day that you cultivate a relationship and spread love to another, that love reverberates to every person they meet to whatever degree you give it. If each of you were to consciously realize the power that you actually have to change the world and practice it on a daily basis, can you imagine what heroism you would be capable of?”
“For each of you,” Iman added, “that is the Call to Adventure.”
