Bliss: It's a lot of work. It destroys you. It rebuilds you. It is utterly worth it, and you won't ever find it in a six week course online.

We chase our ecstacies as if bliss is a switch that gets flipped after you cross all the things off of your to do list. We persue it up mountain tops, through bass throbing clubs, and into the arms of strangers. We chase it up the corporate ladder. Through late, over worked nights. In high heals and concrictive ties we push and we push and we push and push. All the while the answer is clutched in the claws of our monster-beauty truths.

Nothing pains me more then hearing my favorite Joseph Campbell quote thrown around like so much cliché copy with complete disregard for the lifetime of work that went behind it. Following your bliss isn't about achieving upper middle classhood. It's not about traveling the world. It's not about commercial success. Sometimes these things happen as positive side effects, but the reality is that following your bliss is not about every day pleasure, but instead about that spiritual exhalation when you're truth is released from constrictive societal expectations. It's about refusing to conform to and instead enacting change in a world that demands unquestioning servitude.

You can't"follow your bliss" without the heroes journey, and the heroes journey is largely torturous. It involves dying, going into the underworld, failing painfully and repeatedly. It's about evolving above your greatest fears, learning to appreciate your present, and refining wisdom. Even as you're going through some of the most challenging, torturous periods of your life you will still be happier then you ever were when you were trying to box yourself into being someone else.

For my parents, it means constantly evolving careers that honor their commitment to nurturing people's goodness.  For my boyfriend it meant living out of a van for three years while touring with his band. For me, it means making the music that I feel compelled to create instead of thinking about hits.  For you, it might not mean what you think, in fact it might be something you're scared to even entertain.

We all love sunsets on tropical beaches and many of us crave the sense of freedom we think world travel will bring, but none of that is "following your bliss". Instead, we must have the courage to unleash our deepest truths and to consciously curate the person we were meant to be. It's not sexy work, but in the end, it's the only work that matters.