The Hero’s Journey, But It’s Just Me

All great myths are born with prophecy.

Or in this case, an email. You've been charged $39.99 for another month of Premium Self-Optimization+ Ultra Elite Tier. A bold move, considering I haven’t opened the app since the day I tried breathwork, passed out on a yoga mat, and briefly hallucinated that my radiator was judging me.

I clicked the link to cancel. It brought me to a login screen. I had not logged in since the Bush administration. My password was either the chemical formula for serotonin or the name of my childhood hamster spelled backward in Latin. After six failed attempts and a shameful try that included emojis, I hit “Forgot Password.” The system promptly told me no such account existed. Fascinating, since they’d just charged me. I had officially entered the maze.

I tried the app. It greeted me with confetti and a message that said Welcome back, Warrior. A little digital coach popped up to ask if I was ready to transform. I clicked “Settings.” It redirected me to something called “Growth Path.” I clicked “Account,” and it sent me to “The Journey Continues.” I clicked “Help” and met Kevin, an AI chatbot who answered every question with That’s a great question! I asked, “How do I cancel?” Kevin responded by asking me to describe my personal resistance to growth and sent me a GIF of a lotus blooming.

Kevin was not on my side.

I called the number buried at the bottom of the email. A recorded voice so calm it felt like an emotional ambush offered me seven menu options, each one leading to another until I found myself in a loop of “press 3 to return to the main menu,” which somehow kept increasing in volume like the phone was losing patience with me. After what may have been 19 minutes, or 1,000 years, I reached someone named Rhonda.

Rhonda sounded like she had seen battle. Her tone suggested she had once tried to cancel too, and barely made it out. She asked me for my subscriber identity key. I told her I had an email and mounting rage. She sighed, possibly for both of us, and placed me on hold again. I stared into the void. The void stared back and offered me a seven-day trial of its premium abyss.

I tried PayPal. PayPal sent me back to the merchant. The merchant redirected me to Kevin. Kevin sent me an article titled Why Resistance Is the First Step to Awakening. I broke out into a cold sweat and updated my billing information just so I could delete it. That, somehow, worked.

I think.

Two hours later, I received a confirmation email.

We're sorry to see you go. You’ll still be enrolled through the next billing cycle. I read it like a war veteran reads the final mission debrief. I had canceled a subscription. And in doing so, I had canceled part of myself.

One week later, I got another email. You’ve been selected for our Beta Gold Legacy Resilience Plan, free for 7 days! I stared at it. I smiled. And I dragged it directly into spam without flinching.

Because in the end, it was never about the subscription. It was about learning to unsubscribe from things pretending to be helpful.

And that’s the real hero’s journey. Crawling through the labyrinth of tech support, emerging with your credit card intact, and finally knowing that freedom smells like a deleted account and a cold glass of water.