The Story Of Life

No one knows where their story is going, nor who the heroes in it are going to be. At anytime, life can surprise you. Life itself can trick us and it can certainly mislead us. It can paint one person a hero when they very well may be the villain. Hero or villain? Villain or hero? Maybe its neither. Maybe, just maybe, life itself is playing the role of an unreliable trickster, testing us until we find our true identity. Maybe those it paints as heroes and villains in our stories are actually just the day players in a much bigger script; the story of life. Maybe these entities are simply extras, filling the frames so that through the trials and tribulations, we can find out who we are at the core; free of social conditioning, free of unbias wants and needs, free of falsehoods.

Life can be such an oddity when you break it down to the core. As a whole, most of us think we know the meaning and the purpose of life, but when we really start to break it down and dissect it, I can’t help but to wonder how many people actually live the life they want to live, rather than the role they believe they should live up to? How much of our day to day interaction is based from our most basic forms of who we are rather than who we believe we should be? How much of who we are is acting as a role rather than living as we want?

Can you imagine it for just one moment? The character you would be in a life that was filled with limitless attainabilities? Strip away the ideals that come with social conditioning and begin to see the desires of your soul. Dissolve the notion of monetary gains and how those roles afflict your world. See a life in which is completely comprised of desire that is free of judgement and obstacles that derail such rapture. What does that look like? What character would you play? Would you be a villain or the hero? Would you be kind to the stranger next to you, simply because? Would you be thirsted by hunger of limitless wants? What is it that you crave? What story would you choose?

I for one crave a happy life; I have an almost desperate craving for stability and happiness, the way a lost hiker craves a rescue. I want to live a big, great, fantastical life but I get concerned that the tragedy that seems to follow me, the tragedy that birthed me will prevent that from ever happening. And for the first time, I simply do not know if I can withstand another bodily blow that life has narrated with its trickeries. But it is in those moments of disparity that I remember, in pockets of clarity, that I am the writer of this story; that I have the ability to direct and dictate anything that comes into my story.

Often times, we get entangled with the villains that enter our life that we refute; but at the end of day, it is within each and every one of us to dictate the reactions and continued courses of the roles we play. We may not always like the acts and scenes that come into our story, but we are always in control of the character we lead.

So why is it that we typically wait until the end of our lives, to truly reflect on the roles we play? To earnestly look at the life that we have led and reminisce of the highlights and the missed opportunities? I read that the number one regret of those who are dying wished they had the courage to live a life that was true to themselves, not the life that others expected of them. I thought about that statement and what it meant to me personally, and what it could mean as a blanket statement and I found it to be very profound. So listen to me now, it is within each and every one of us to narrate and deliver the story of the life we want. For any shortcomings or stupendous bliss is a direct correlation of the character we choose to play and this choice is given to us each and every moment of the day.

Life will come with many ups and downs but that doesn’t have to falter the character that we play. Inevitably our story will have more downs than ups, but this is life, and this is what it does, not who we are. Life brings you to your knees, it brings you lower than you think you can go. But if you remember to stand back up and move forward, if you go just a little farther, you will always have the ability to adapt to your story. At the end of our lives, when our bodies fail us, our stories become us. So give yourself a beautiful life, the most beautiful life you can imagine, play the role that you want to be. And when life brings us to our knees, remember the character you choose to embody and stand back up. And though it may be easy to wallow in the tragedies that shape our lives, and while its natural to focus on those unspeakable moments that brings us to our knees, we must remind ourselves that if we get back up, we can take this story a little bit further. After all, this is our story, this is our life, remember to choose it, before it chooses to whisk life away.