Leaving Sleepy Land

The Hero's Journey Series, Part Two.

“The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, ‘Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There’s a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.’”
—Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

You don’t usually mean to fall asleep.

It just happens.
Slowly.
Safely.
Comfortably.

You settle into routines.
You trade curiosity for productivity.
You take fewer risks.
You stop asking the big questions.

You tell yourself, “This is fine.”

Until one day it’s not.

And here’s the thing:
Sleep isn’t bad.
It’s essential.
It heals. It protects. It restores.

But sleep was never meant to last forever.

There comes a moment when you’ve rested long enough—and not getting out of bed becomes its own kind of decay.

Sleepy Land is what happens when you should be awake—but you stay in a sleepy, hypnotic state.

Something has to wake you up.

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The Call Always Interrupts Something

The Call to Adventure never shows up at the perfect time.

It doesn’t wait until your schedule clears.
It doesn’t care that your benefits package is decent.
It doesn’t ask how your parents will feel about it.

It just shows up.
Uninvited.
Inconvenient.
Unreasonable.

And it starts as a whisper.

A subtle restlessness.
A low-grade ache.
A question you can’t un-ask.

Most people ignore it at first.

We hit snooze.
We tell ourselves we’ll deal with it later.
We’re not ready.
It’s not urgent.
We’re too tired to think about it.

But it keeps coming back.
Sometimes quieter.
Sometimes louder.
Until one day the whisper becomes a wake-up call you can’t sleep through anymore.

The Call rarely sounds rational.

That’s what makes it a Call.

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When the Hero Hits Snooze

We see it everywhere once we know to look:

• Moses hears the call from a burning bush—and immediately argues with it. “Who am I to lead?” Then, “They won’t believe me.” Then, “I’m not a good speaker.”
  He hits snooze about five times before he finally goes.

• In Hindu mythology, Arjuna stands on the battlefield in the Bhagavad Gita and freezes. The call to fight overwhelms him. He puts down his weapon and says, “I will not do this.”

• In Japanese folklore, the warrior Yamato Takeru disguises himself to avoid a deadly mission—trying to escape his fate before finally embracing it.

• Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) doesn’t wake up instantly. He sees suffering and wrestles with what it means—hesitating before leaving the palace.

• In West African tales, the trickster Anansi often refuses the call by trying to outsmart it—looking for shortcuts, making deals, avoiding the hard path. And eventually, the story pushes him forward anyway.

• And in modern myth?
  Frodo says, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.”
  Neo closes the door on the Matrix.

  Tommy Boy doesn’t want to grow up.

  And you hit snooze again last week when something started stirring that felt too big.

The Call almost always comes with resistance.

That’s how you know it’s real.

You don’t want to go—but you can’t unhear it.

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Why We Resist

We’re not lazy.
We’re not weak.
We’re not bad at being brave.

We just know—on some deep, cellular level—that if we say yes to the Call, we don’t get to stay the same.

We don’t get to keep the same identity.
The same version of success.
The same carefully constructed life we’ve been managing.

The Call threatens all of it.

Sleepy Land is what I often call “the normal world.”
It may not be perfect, but it’s predictable.
It has few surprises.
We know the rules of engagement.
We’ve learned how to win—or at least how to survive.

Leaving that world?
Even when we’re miserable in it?
Feels like giving up something we’ve earned.

And that’s terrifying.

We resist the Call because we know what it will cost us.
Not just practically, but emotionally.
We’ll have to tell the truth.
Let go of something safe.
Disappoint people.
Disappoint ourselves.

Sometimes resisting the Call feels like the more responsible choice.

But if we’re honest?

It’s the most dangerous kind of self-preservation.

It keeps us asleep—with the illusion of control—while the clock keeps ticking.

And the ticking clock?

That’s your one and only life.

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What Waking Up Looks Like

Eventually, something shifts.
Something breaks open.
And you know: I can’t stay here anymore.

We’ve seen it in stories a thousand times:

• Frodo loves the Shire. He doesn’t want anything to do with magic rings or dark lords. But once he knows the truth, staying home becomes impossible. The danger follows him anyway.

• Luke is just a farm kid on a desert planet. He dreams of adventure but doesn’t really believe in it. Not until the Empire burns his whole world to the ground. He’s not ready—but he goes.

• William Wallace in Braveheart just wants a quiet life. He literally refuses the call. Tries to build a family. Stay out of the fight. But when the fight comes for him—when they kill his wife—he can’t pretend anymore. The sleeping part of him dies. And something else wakes up.

That’s what this moment feels like.

You’ve hit snooze.
You’ve stayed in Sleepy Land longer than you meant to.

But now you know:

The story is moving—with or without you.

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What About You?

Have you been asleep?

Not in a lazy way. In a safe way.
In a don’t rock the boat way.
In a this is fine way.

Are you still hitting snooze?

Do you know—deep down—that you were made for more than this?

You don’t have to say yes yet.
But notice the tension.
Feel the ache.
Pay attention to the whisper.

Because sooner or later… you’ll have to decide:

Do I stay in Sleepy Land?

Or do I wake up, summon my courage, and do what every great hero does—cross the threshold?

Because once you do that, there’s no turning back.

That’s tomorrow.