In my hometown, one of the attractive lifeguards at the community pool had this quote tattooed onto his back. While everyone else was admiring his shoulder blades, I was squealing over a man who appreciated Joseph Campbell.
And why shouldn't he? Nearly everyone--if not everyone--responds to this quote. Why? Because most of us allow our lives to be guided by extrinsic motivations. We do well in school because we have to get into a good college so that we can get a good job so that we can support ourselves so that we can finally, after all of that work, do what makes us happy.
But this linear plan is a myth in our modern world. And when things don't go according to plan, we finally realize that we have invested all of our energy in pursuits that did not feed our soul. The only reason that we persevered was that we believed there would be some sort of pay-off at the end. And now we know that this belief is not always true, and we are not in the place that we thought we would be. We have not reached the point at which we have succeeded enough and suffered enough to finally focus on what makes us happy.
But we don't have to reach that point. We can be happy now.
The easiest, simplest, and most adventurous way to live the kind of life that you want to live is to follow your bliss. It will not lead you astray--not in the big scheme of things. There will be hiccups and doubts and moments of overwhelming fear. Joseph Campbell himself went through a period in which he lived at a friend's house in California, had no idea what his purpose was in life, and sent out dozens of applications for teaching positions every year, which were rejected.
But if you follow your bliss, you will at least have the comfort of knowing that you are living for the right reason. And you will be surprised at the beautiful things that come of it.
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