“Following your bliss” means making decisions based on your deepest desires. This includes everything from major life decisions down to how you spend your time on a daily basis. It denotes a sense of autonomy; decisions being made based on what makes you feel most alive and most “you”

Not long ago, whenever I heard “follow your bliss” I balked at it as being quaint and unrealistic all the while spending thousands a year trying to distract myself from a life which I’d designed, and thoroughly despised. In retrospect I dared not dream of bliss; anything beyond a bearable level of misery seemed out of reach. I barely hung on for years.

Then one day the emptiness and pointlessness of my life became undeniably clear and I knew I couldn’t go on for another day. I felt utterly devastated and alone. I stood at that threshold I thought I’d left behind a decade earlier. Would I kill myself? I couldn’t imagine my son’s life without me. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t.

In the months that followed I tried like hell to convince myself that I just needed a different job and that somehow business analytics would be fulfilling. Every time I tried to find another job I became dangerously depressed and anxious. It seemed my mind was revolting from me selling my soul again; I couldn’t even if I would.

In a flash one day I suddenly understood that I simply could not ignore the calling I felt or it would kill me. It occurred to me that the proper use of my intellect was not to design the life I thought I should have, but to assist me on the journey on which my heart would lead. It nearly had already so many times. Strangely in that dark hour I felt more hope than I’d experienced in years. Along with it a fierce determination; failure was not an option.

I believe, as Tama Kieves puts it, following your bliss or your true desire is an initiation of the soul. As such, it is not without its barren winters and dark nights. It is what Joseph Campbell called the Hero’s Journey, an archetypal truth told in a million different lives and myths from nearly every tradition. Its general landscape can be seen in the paths of Christ, Buddha and many other spiritual masters.

I believe that many of the feelings associated with the crises I’ve experienced resemble the description of a stage called ‘Refusal of the Call’. This second stage of the Hero’s Journey follows the ‘Call to Adventure’ When the hero/heroine is called to journey into the unknown. In myth, this is often some sort of quest for a magical item that will help his world.

That feeling you have to follow your true desire is just such a calling. And make no mistake; the world needs you. Not who you think you should be, not who anyone else thinks you should be, who you really are and always have been. Isn’t it ironic that society has always told you the opposite. From religion to mainstream psychology the message is that we need to be something other than our true nature. In reality you need to be more yourself, not less. (Here’s the kicker though, you aren’t who you think you are.)

This pull within you is not new. You have likely fought it your entire life. You have struggled tirelessly and unsuccessfully to be ‘normal’. One day you will be thankful that you didn’t succeed because you weren’t meant to be ordinary, you were meant to be extraordinary.

But you haven’t yet taken that leap into the unknown adventure of following your bliss. You’re still on the shore reading about great adventures while refusing your own. And each time life presents an opportunity you know was meant for you and you watch it pass by you die a little. Joseph Campbell describes this stage, “His flowering world becomes a wasteland of dry stones and his life feels meaningless—even though… he may through titanic effort succeed in building an empire or renown. Whatever house he builds, it will be a house of death: a labyrinth of cyclopean walls to hide from him his minotaur. All he can do is create new problems for himself and await the gradual approach of his disintegration.”

There is hope for escape lies in a commitment to follow your calling at any price. Once you cross this threshold everything changes.

“Follow your bliss … If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” – Joseph Campbell

I say do not follow your aptitudes, for they are mere chance. The best they can bring you is a life outwardly comfortable. Follow instead your passion for it is the language of the soul. My life continues to be life, with moments ecstatic and moments heart-breaking, but I have begun to understand and accept that if I do certain simple things I can survive and even thrive in conditions that would be otherwise unbearable. While there are many practices that help me compensate for my mental and emotional vulnerabilities they are without point if I’m not following my heart’s desires. Without a purpose, the question becomes, “Do I want to be happy or just learn to live better with misery?” I still have so far to go but there is peace in knowing I’m finally on a road worth traveling.