Physical Journeys In Homer's Odyssey

One of the lessons someone can learn from a journey is that going on physical journeys provides a way through self-reflection. Present in the epic poem, the Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus went on a long and challenging journey to get back to their home, Ithaca. When this lesson takes place, Odysseus and his crew were on the island of the Cyclops. Before Odysseus and his crew left the island, they had to go through physical and mental challenges when facing the cyclops, Polyphemus. They had lost many men who could’ve been saved if Odysseus had swallowed his pride and not taunted the cyclops. In addition, when they were leaving the island, Odysseus revealed his name to Polyphemus and was teasing him over how he manipulated him to which Polyphemus

So we moved out, sad in the vast offing, having our precious lives, but not our friends” (Homer 479-484). In other words, now that they had to leave with a curse on them it gave them time to think about everything that had occurred. Analyzing this, It was a bittersweet moment for them because although they finally escaped with their “precious lives,” their crewmates and close friends were lost because of their arrogance. Moreover, this moment provided an opportunity for Odysseus to go through self-reflection and think about the choices, both good and bad, that he made. He should've realized the fact that most of them could’ve been saved if he hadn’t put his pride in the way of everything. While the poem doesn’t directly comment on Odysseus being audacious, it does give him the opportunity to while he’s

This is present in the SuperSoul Conversations podcast when Oprah Winfrey features Dwayne the Rock Johnson in this specific episode, Your Life In Focus. When asked what the most important thing to be is, the Rock responds with, “Be yourself. Yeah. And you were talking about that earlier, about that moment that you learned to be authentic is when everything changed” (Winfrey). In other words, staying true to oneself and being who one feels is oneself is the best way one can live one's life because it's theirs. Growing up, the Rock was going through a lot with who he was or wanted to be vs who his father wanted him to be. Evidently, the back and forth was constantly on his mind, he didn’t know whether to please the person he looked up to or himself. He realized that since it was his life he’d have to live with, it should be him that he was being true to. Emphatically, the journey to find himself embracing who he was wasn’t easy but that’s what he ended up doing. He explained more about this topic in the podcast about the most powerful thing one could ever be just oneself. Moreover, it’s best to be comfortable with ones own identity in their own skin than anything else. The second example of this lesson is shown in “The Journey” by Mary Oliver. “But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds