Hero's Journey
A common mythological narrative template in which a hero departs on an adventure, faces a decisive crisis, wins a victory, and returns home changed or transformed.
Origin
Anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor first catalogued recurring hero-myth patterns in 1871. Joseph Campbell popularized the structure in his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, borrowing the term "monomyth" from James Joyce and drawing on Carl Jung's analytical psychology. Campbell's framework went on to influence filmmakers including George Lucas, who credited it as a key inspiration for Star Wars.
Everyday Use
We think of the Hero's Journey as an epic adventure, but it can be just as consequential in an average day — making the right decisions, defeating our own monsters, recognizing that each new day is one where can aspire to walk the hero's path of our own lives.