A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.*
Joseph Campbell

Fear is self-focused. Day-to-day our fear is about us … And generosity is about others. “How can I help?”**
Seth Godin

The hero’s journey begins
in humility, which is to know oneself and
to recognise others –
The truth of you and the truth of me;
Erich Fromm would perhaps say that
we are thus brought into the presence and
promulgation of beauty:
Here lies the connection between beauty and truth.
Beauty is not the opposite of the “ugly,” but of
the “false”;
it is the sensory statement of the suchness of a thing
or a person.^

Suchness is about being oneself, which
also turns out to be one of the most
difficult things
we’ll ever do –
So many forces pulling us from
without and within:
The great law of life is: be yourself.
Though the axiom sounds simple, it is often the
most difficult task. To be yourself, you have to
learn how to become who you were dreamed to be.
Each person has a unique destiny.^^

It is difficult because to be ourselves
we must not only recognise but
empathise with others, so that
our deepest joys can meet their deepest need,
And vice versa –
The hero, more than anyone, knows that
they are not super-human.

To have a shot at this, there is great benefit in
beginning the day alone; I stretch David Whyte’s words to
cover more than our paid work, to describe our
greater contribution, something he names
Prime:
Prime is the time we establish
ourselves in the world on
Individual, equal terms.
Once we have contact again
with an essence and a sense of
accomplishment, then we can offer ourselves
to others for conversation in a new way.*^

*Anna Katharina Schaffner’s The Art of Self Improvement;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Generosity and fear;
^Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope;
^^John O’Donohue’s Benedictus;
*^David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea.