After the first step, the next step in the Hero's Journey is the Crossing of the Threshold. This is the point of no return. This is when you accept your offer to attend the school you want, or might not want. This is when you decide what exactly you want to major in. This is the first thing you encounter when you graduate from college. If you never cross this threshold, you will never know all of the great possibilities that lie beyond it.
So many people are scared of the world that they won't even manage to take this step. Nothing great was ever achieved while sitting on a futon playing video games. There is a whole world outside of your dorm room or apartment, waiting for you to cross that threshold and make something of yourself. Making that jump is both the scariest and most rewarding thing you can do. You must leave your known limits and cross into an unknown world where your limits will be tested and explored.
The last phase of the Hero's separation from the world they once knew is called the Belly of the Whale. This stage marks the final separation of the Hero from his known world. It also marks the point where the Hero accepts that he will be going through a change. As a young adult you grow, change, and mature more in college than at any other point in your life. Over the 4 (or 5…or maybe 6) years you take classes, you have the opportunity to learn most of life's lessons. You must willingly accept that these lessons will come and that college will be an experience that will change you. If you are unwilling to let college change who you are, then it will chew you up and spit you right back up.
The next stage of the Hero's Journey is the Initiation. Through this stage, the Hero is met with many trials and tribulations. This stage is the crucible through which a stronger and better you is formed.
The first phase of the Initiation phase of the Hero's Journey is the Road of Trials. This is a series of tasks that the Hero must perform in order to advance on his Journey. In college, these trials take the form of the classes you choose to take. Some can be ridiculously easy, but in others the class average may be a 65%, and the professor has so thick of an accent that they might as well be speaking gibberish. By choosing these trials you advance along your Journey to the ultimate goal of graduating. There are times when it is easy to take the easy trials.
Freshman year is a good time to take some easier classes and get yourself acquainted with college life, and expand your horizon. Sometimes you have so much going on between school, work, and your social life that it might be a must to take a lighter course load this quarter or semester. Knowing when these times are, is important for your success in your own Journey.
There are times, however, when the biggest and scariest monsters must be challenged. Failure in life can sometimes be an option, but you can only fail one class so many times before they don't let you take it again. You must do your best to prepare for these larger challenges in any way you can. Use the studying skills and lessons you learned taking those 100 or 200 level courses in your freshman year, to survive those crazy 400 level classes in your senior year. Each trial has value and is important in its own right, and in order to continue on your Journey, each one must be conquered, one way or another.
