Something I’ve been trying to articulate for awhile is how and why people, especially when they are young, get sucked into a cycle of constantly going out and drinking late into the night.
Now before I get into the ideas I want to present in this post let me preface by saying that I’ve gone out to bars before, I’ve gone to house parties before, I’ve drank at home with friends till 3am before. I’ve had fun doing these things and I’ll go to bars and parties again in the future.
However, doing these things has never became my main focus & the thing that I structured the rest of my life around. More so it’s been a fun night long detour from whatever else I was trying to do with my time.
So, I always had the question of why do others get so sucked into this lifestyle/pattern.
The conclusion I’ve came to overtime is that going out to bars allows the person going out to live out a false hero’s journey.
Let me start by giving a definition of a hero’s journey.
A, “hero’s journey” as used in this post is going out into the world from your home to
- accomplish a goal
- get an item
- return after having gained either knowledge or experience.
An example of gaining knowledge – You go and try an activity for a period of time that makes you nervous and each time after doing said activity return home with either gained knowledge or experience.
A specific example of this could be starting a gym routine.
Maybe you haven’t worked out much before and going into a gym makes you anxious as you feel like everybody is looking at you/judging you, (which they most likely arn’t)
Each time you go to the gym and overcome these feelings you’re returning with literal, GAINS in the form of getting stronger and your getting mental gains as well from going into an environment that once made you anxious.
An example of gaining an item – Going to work.
You are going out into whatever environment you make money at and gaining financial stability for yourself & your family.
Some people have really hard jobs such as construction workers & other trades and, at least the way I see it, you are a hero for going into environments where you could get severely injured to return with resources.
With these examples I want to show that
You don’t need to be going to a haunted castle and fighting a dragon to be living out a real life hero’s journey.
These examples I’m giving are easily achievable by anyone.
So, now that I’ve defined what a hero’s journey is let me elaborate on the idea of the false hero’s journey.
A false hero’s journey is going out into the world and putting yourself in situations where you’re going to be negatively impacted by the journey
I don’t mean failing at achieving a goal, I mean going and doing something where the end result is obviously going to be a negative impact on you.
When you go out to the bars you are going to be negatively impacted financially.
- The drinks & food cost exorbitant amounts of money
- Uber’s are expensive
- You need to pay sometimes just to get into the door
When you go out to the bars you’re being negatively impacted mentally & physically
- Generally the conversations are meaningless
- You wake up in a weakened physical state with a hangover
- If you’re a erratic/violent person than you’re going to act like a jackass while you’re drunk and get beat up by the employees at the bar or pick a fight with a person you shouldn’t
It’s easy to see how the feeling of going out creates the illusion of a glorious crusade into the unknown.
PICTURE THIS
You pregame with your good friends, laugh, have fun and get a buzz going by the first few drinks of the night.
Then, its time for battle! You all get into a 50$ Uber together and your army walks into the bar. You take over a section of unclaimed territory by sitting at a large booth together or go to battle by playing pickup games of pool or darts in an attempt to take over that section of the bar from the previous winners.
After your time at the bar, the main battle and peak of the night’s storyline you all march away together, maybe a friend has acquired spoils of war in the form of a morally vacated slut who has crabs, and you all proceed to go stuff your face at a Denny’s greasy burgers and fries all the while spending more money.
Then, the crusade is over, you return to the safety of base camp in the form of someone’s apartment or house.
Maybe you have an after party with your friends where you reach an even higher high to end the night and start going skiing with your nose.
Now you’ve satisfied every one of your heathenistic appetites to their fullest extent. You’ve got your fix of liquor, fried food, and maybe sex or drugs & it’s finally time to rest.
You wake up, hazy from the war from the night before and rendezvous with your allies at a breakfast place to discuss the highlights from the false hero’s journey you all went on the previous night.
Maybe your friend that had sexual relations tells you about the, “spoils from war” he got while small bugs crawl out from under his collar.
You might curb the hangover by drinking bottomless mimosas and as you leave the breakfast place the false hero’s journey comes to a close.
The takeaway? An STD, a win in a game of pool or darts, a snap chat clip of somebody chugging five beers at once, a funny joke and…. that’s basically it.
Now it’s time to go home and order Doordash while you watch the office or rick and morty & stuff your face with cosmic brownies while inhaling dabs.
The hours are ticking away until 9am Monday morning when you begin your work week at a corporate job and daydream about next Friday/Saturday nights false hero’s journey.
Once again, not saying I’m not going to go out to some bars in the future & drink. But constantly chasing after this kind of high is no way to live your life.
That’s all I got for this one. Thanks for reading 🙂
-Kyle