Once upon a time a man and woman came together and they liked each very much. Nine months later you were born. Ever since then, life has never been the same. From the day you were born you have had happy moments as well as challenges. This is pretty much how everybody’s story starts but we cannot say how it ends.
We are surrounded by stories and we are moved by them, are touched by them and even inspired by them. All life is a story, and so is your life too.
Your life is a story that began when you were born and will keep on running until the day you die. Though we may not have much of a say how our stories began we do have a say on how they end. That is for those who are willing to actively participate in telling the story of their lives.
Note that I am saying actively participate because some people are not actively participating in the telling of their stories. They are passive observers or should I say characters in the unfolding drama we call life. They let life tell the story and because they let life tell the story they let events dictate what happens next. They don’t have a life script and because they don’t have a script they easily give in to what life has to offer.
Often those that have a script stand up to the circumstances that life throws at them in an attempt to maintain control of the script. They know that if they don’t stand up to the elements then they will lose the plot and if they lose the plot the story of their lives will be told by others.
Life every now and then throws these storytellers curve balls and twists they did not bargain for. Even then they don’t give up in.
We have all heard stories of people who had it all and yet they lost it all. We have also heard stories of people who started with nothing and ended up with everything. Of love stories and people that have suffered unimaginable tragedy from which others said they would never recover. Yet we have heard that these people did not only recover but rose to new and dizzying heights of success.
You have been what you have been through and nobody can take that away from you. Life has dealt you the cards it has dealt you and it doesn’t matter; what matters is how you play the card you have been dealt. You can complain about the cards you have been dealt or you can tell a different story.
Some people give up and give in to their weaknesses and like animals they indulge their every instinct until like animals they are controlled by their own instincts. As humans it is the ability to rise above our instincts that makes us different from fellow creatures in the animal kingdom. If you take that ability away then we are no different from cats and dogs.
The power we have to control our instincts depends on how well connected we are to the script that is running through our lives. Is the script running itself or are we actively engaged in directing the script as events unfold?
The more engaged we are with our script the more power we have in handling our own instincts. We are able to delay gratification and to deny ourselves temporary indulgences that tempt us into losing the plot.
Whether you are actively involved in shaping the story of your life or not is not the point. The point is to realise that one day you will inevitably arrive at a destination.
Whether that destination would be a destination that you sought from the very beginning or whether that destination is where life led you is another matter. The bottom line is that you will arrive. When you arrive you will either be where you set out to be, in which case if you are not where you want to be.
Therefore you will realize that you are at the wrong place and begin anew to correct the course. The tragedy however would be when you have arrived and not realize you have arrived because you had no destination in mind, or when you arrive and you not able to differentiate your new destination with the place you just left because you have no idea what the end is supposed to look like.
If you have a script for your life, you can change direction any time, you can change course any time and decide to be that which you set your heart upon. However, if you have no script then you can become anything that life wants you to become. Even a beggar would be fine because you will have no script against which to benchmark your life. So what is your script, how would you want them to tell your story? How would you like your story to end?
