Ms. Rechtman, my 9th grade World History teacher, first introduced us to Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey” on a cold and blustery day late in November.
“Isn’t that just when you have a hero and he goes out, kills the bad guy or gets the gold, and then comes back?” I put forth, proud of my answer and smiling.
“Not quite,” she laughed, “While you identified some major elements... you forgot about the journey!”
****
When my mom knocked on my door at 6 am one day in July, at first I resisted, but then pulled myself from the sheets, dressed in the athletic shorts, T- shirt, and sweater that I had laid out the night before, and accepted the call to adventure. Grabbing bags and moving out of the house, groggy, as only a hint of light began to rise from behind the mountain range, we piled into the waiting car. Our trusty Jeep, which we kept out at our summer house in Idaho year round, had broken down due to a computer malfunction, and the repair shop had misplaced orders and shipped parts to the wrong stores. As such, they had agreed to compensate us for a rental car, which we would then proceed to take on a road trip across the western United States. As we drove off, I reclined, leaning against my pillow, which cushioned the door, and went back to sleep. Later, settled in for the ride, I watched as the city turned into suburbs, which soon gave way to vast fields of hay, interrupted only by rotating sprinklers and the occasional cattle ranch. The pavement glistened under a sun now climbing to its apex in the sky, and its shimmering surface, as reflective as a calm lake at sunset, contrasted beautifully with the golden hay flowing in the breeze.
The minutes began to melt into hours, and we soon pulled into the Salt Lake City airport parking lot and found my dad waiting by the rental car desks. He had to be approved as a second driver, and thus had to sign a series of liability releases. Throughout our journey we had been giving him updates on our rental, which we had convinced him was a red convertible Mustang. They ranged from believable texts like, “The wind feels so nice with the top down” to overt lies.
When he called during his layover and asked how we had fit all the bags, I, jokingly, concocted a story about how we were pulling a tube behind us that had all the bags tied down to it, before laughing the question off by saying, “We managed, you’ll see.” He didn’t press anymore. Because of all the buildup McCall and I sat back eagerly awaiting the moment of truth. As the Hertz agent gave us the go ahead, we walked out to the garage, and, as my mom unlocked the Xterra, my dad let out a howl. Just like a wolf must when his prey outsmarts him and escapes, the howl grew in pitch as he came to realize that he had been fooled. Soon, however, the howl turned into laughter—laughter that would continue throughout the rest of our road trip.
With my dad with us and the crew fully assembled, we drove on to Mesa Verde where we spent three days. Finally accustomed to the heat and altitude, on our third day we hiked out to the balcony house where a ranger would take us on a tour. As he saw us approaching, he walked over to us and looked down at me. “You look to be of a good marrying age,” he began. I stood there stunned, but my father took up the conversation and replied, “I agree. It’s about time he should make his own house.” With that, I had been signed up to be the focus of the day’s tour, and all of the ranger’s stories about the lives that the Anasazi lived ran through me. After we had climbed down the ladder into the dwelling, and stood on a platform overlooking the canyon’s valley, he began to talk. “There used to be a kiva here,” and turning to me continued, “now, can you guess how much work it took to make this one kiva?” I stood there completely clueless. Guessing, I put forth, “perhaps a couple days?” He smiled and proceeded to correct me. “Perhaps if everyone worked together and forgot about feeding themselves, they could dig out the kiva in a couple days, but the logs that made up the roof had to be cut from the forest dozens of miles away, dragged here, and lowered down. Now that took a long long time.”
Standing there it struck me. These cliff dwellings did not magically appear. They were not carved in a single day, either. The homes took lifetimes of hard work to build. That was hard work. However, with the hard work, they had successfully created something amazing.
****
In the hero’s journey, after the call to adventure, the hero progresses from the known into the unknown. Often he is helped by a supernatural power. For example, in Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi trains Luke, molding him into the Jedi that he had the potential to become, and continues to provide classic snippets of wisdom in the most trying moments. During this part of the journey, the hero experiences challenges that test his mettle as he determines his own boundaries, limits, and potential.
As we discussed this stage of the journey back in Ms. Rechtman’s class, I spoke up. “But what if you don’t have any supernatural mentors? Say you were actually a real person... Wouldn’t that put you at a pretty big disadvantage according to Campbell?”
She replied, “Any piece of wisdom can be super if given at the right moment. It doesn’t take a god or wizard to do that. You just need good mentors.” After a pause she continued, “After all, one of Campbell’s main points is that in this stage the end result of each challenge does not necessarily matter. Rather it’s the journey that teaches and builds the foundation for future success... and you most certainly don’t need a supernatural mentor to go on a journey.”
****
After we got back from our road trip, McCall and I began to prepare for the cardboard boat regatta. The regatta was a fundraiser for Adaptive Wilderness Sports program in town, and all the advertisements around town read, “Build a boat and be a hero.” We were going to build a boat, be heroes, and win the race. Competing in the regatta was a family tradition; we had competed before and had thought about competing every year since. As always, we planned to win. We entered as a team of four, the two of us and two local friends, and began to build our craft. Carefully selecting the stiffest and thus most waterproof cardboard from the pile designated for boat builders, we labored through the sun’s heat rushing to build her up to a state of perfection before the 2 pm competition deadline. I was in charge of design, and this year we had decided to go with a classic four-man shell, with each man pulling an oar instead of propelling ourselves with double-sided kayak paddles (we had gone the kayak route in a previous year and had almost sunk due to excess water take-on from uncoordinated paddling). I had gone into this year’s competition proposing a single mission. “If we build a kayak replica then I could beat all of the awkward multi-person crews!” In response, McCall reminded me that it took a crew to win a boat race. One man pulling strong can help, but four pulling in sync will win out any day. When we were about to push off into the water, I turned around on the dock and said a few words, paraphrased unabashedly from George Yeoman Pocock, arguably the greatest rowing shell designer and builder the world has ever seen.
“It is hard,” I began, “to make the boat go fast. On this journey we will face many challenges. The water will resist our every forward motion, and so the water is our enemy... but that very water supports us and thus that very enemy is our friend... This race will not be easy. There are no timeouts, no substitutions, if we begin to sink, only we can save the boat. From the first stroke all thoughts must be directed to your oar. They must be positive, and you must pull your own weight. You must lose yourself to the crew as a whole, and only then will we win, and boys...let us win.”
With that we entered the water, and after a few pulls promptly sank. It wasn’t for lack of solidarity, however, and before we took a nose dive and split the bow, we pulled out to an early lead as our teamwork leading up to the moment of truth paid off.
****
Later, back on dry land (aka the golf course), I faced another challenge. Dissimilar in nature, but to my mind equally daunting. I stood on the 9th hole of Aspen, the effective front 9 of the public course in town, the night before the amateur tournament was to be held there. The sprinklers were running, trying to soothe the pain inflicted on the grass by the day’s beating sun, and as I waited for them to pass over the tee, I planned out my course of action. The hole was my nemesis. I knew that the tee shot demanded a left to right ball flight, but when I approached it that way I always seemed to end up in the houses or trees to the right of the fairway. Once, however, I had hit the perfect drive. It had cut the corner and left me with only 140 yards into the green. That memory tempted me, but as I looked out again memories of my coach popped up in my mind. “Play smart golf, Bennett... play smart.” With this mantra in mind, I reassessed my options. If I hit it to the corner of the hole, a shot that I could pull off consistently with an iron, I would still be able to hit it close, if not on, the green in two. There was no need to trade a slim reward for a huge risk. Pulling a 4 iron from my bag, I grabbed a ball and teed it up. Swinging freely, I hit the ball, and it took off piercing through the air like a hawk diving for its prey. The perfect shot.
In the tournament the next day I channeled that moment. I hit the perfect tee shot again, knocked it right over the green with my second swing, and got up and down for par. Smart golf.
****
According to Campbell, in the hero’s journey, after he overcomes all the challenges in his path, he is presented with a supreme ordeal. He must draw on all of his training, and all of the lessons that he learned, as he faces what is the ultimate challenge.
As a 9th grader, my only reaction was, “That sounds like fun!” Ms. Rechtman smiled wryly.
****
As it turns out, facing what seems like an ultimate challenge isn’t fun. Like many seniors, my challenge presented itself in the form of college. Throughout high school, many of my actions had been undertaken with the understanding that they would either prepare me for college or would allow me to get into college. Despite this awareness, I was never one to go to extreme lengths. In other words, I never did test prep for the mundane standardized tests and I never joined a club just because I thought that it would get me into college. That said, behind every action I couldn’t help but think that it would help build my college resume. I took all Honors and AP classes, and I took as many classes as possible, even getting special permission to take AP Music Theory as a sophomore, and I lived with one free period a week up until junior year. How could this not differentiate me? Similarly, I grabbed every leadership opportunity that I was presented with. At the end of junior year, Ms. Woods, my college counselor, had me fill out a brag sheet listing all of my activities so that she could write the counselor’s college recommendation. It read like this:
Senior Class Co-President MUN Co-President Head Peer Leader Captain HiMCM Captain M3
Varsity Golf Captain Writing Center Tutor Guitarist - 12 years
She looked at it, said simply, “This will be easy!” and we moved on to other topics. Given my almost perfect SAT score and a solid GPA, I was under the impression that the college process would indeed be easy.
As with all rising high school seniors, I was constantly asked the traditional question, “Where do you want to go to college?” So many times I had replied with my top choices, Pomona and Williams (followed by Brown, Amherst, Duke, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Northwestern, and Bates). And so the last week of March, when most college decisions would come out, loomed large.
I had to get away from waiting, and thus when the opportunity presented itself to spend the weekend before that last week of March up in Boston skiing, I seized it. Bates released decisions on Saturday, but I had been assured I would get in. Saturday morning, I opened the email linking me to the letter at 9 am, still lying in bed, and read what thankfully was an acceptance letter. Relieved, I went back to sleep.
The cycle of eating, sleeping, and skiing repeated itself up until Sunday night when my fingers inevitably typed a c into my browser. This immediately brought up the Pomona college confidential page. My heart rate picked up as I slowly scrolled through the page reading and rereading the ecstatic messages proclaiming that the decisions would arrive in the mail the next day. On my Monday morning train back to New York, I texted my mom and asked her to bring the decision envelope to the train station when she picked me up. I remember thinking, as I looked out at everyone else on the train, my life is about to change, one way or the other, and they have no idea.... When I got off and walked over to the waiting Prius, I made every effort to be normal. Going to the trunk first, I put away my bags. Walking back to the passenger’s seat I peeked in, craning my neck in hopes of spotting an acceptance envelope. I took a deep breath.
“How are you Mom?” I asked. By this point, I knew I was rejected. Bad news comes in small envelopes. Nevertheless, my hands shook as I tried to open it up. Failing to break the seal, I ripped the edge off, realizing that I wouldn’t need or want to save the contents. “We regret to inform you,” stared right back up at me. I took another deep breath leaning back in my chair, and looked back up at my mom to tell her about my weekend.
This story was mirrored in effect each time I opened a new email or letter from a college. I coped by not addressing the rejections. To be frank, I eventually came to expect the rejection. It was understood by all parties involved that I was not fit to go to their college, and that was that.
It was easy to appear nonchalant externally. I found it much harder to actually accept the rejection and move on internally. I could get over my friends’ reaction, commonly characterized by silence followed by a “I’m so sorry....”
“Don’t worry,” I would reply. “Bates is going to be great!” What I couldn’t get out of my mind was the pervading thought that this was not how it was supposed to go. Rejection was never supposed to happen to me. I felt devalued because I had never accepted that this was a possible outcome. I was calm on the outside, but constantly seething inside.
It was not until later that week on Friday night, after my last rejection had arrived, as I lay in my bed trying to fall asleep, that I realized I had fallen into the same trap that 9th grade Bennett had stumbled into four years ago. I had come to focus too much on one major element, in this case a college acceptance, and had forgotten about the journey that had gotten me to that point. Nothing in me had changed. Despite that one grade and my collection of rejections, I was still the same kid who had learned the meaning of hard work. I was still the same kid who had felt the power of teamwork in a cardboard boat. I was still the same kid who realized that as long as I hit the green in two it didn’t matter how I did it, and I was still the same kid who has the respect of some amazing friends. Perhaps my high school story could have had a different ending, but that doesn’t change the fact that I loved and am incredibly proud of all of the chapters.
Now, in no way am I saying that I am a hero. My cycle, however, taught me a lesson. It is not the end of the journey that should teach or inspire, but the journey itself. In my mind, each journey is but a stepping point to the next. In this view, each major element can be a new borrowed beginning for the next story, and the next story promises to be rich in its own right.
As George Pocock wrote about rowing: “In a sport like this—hard work, not much glory, but still popular in every century—well, there must be some beauty which ordinary men can’t see, but extraordinary men do.” I believe that it is the same with the journey of life. Perhaps the man whose life follows set guidelines, and who is never forced off of that path can’t see the value and beauty in every step, but if you’re forced to adjust course, then the beauty becomes apparent.