Narrative and Life
Life's events are but chapters; it's up to us to decide if we're reading a tragedy or a hero's epic.
When I was very young, most of my childhood heroes wore capes, flew through the air, or picked up buildings with one arm. They were spectacular and got a lot of attention. But as I grew, my heroes changed, so that now I can honestly say that anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me.
Narrative and Life
Our lives are a collection of short stories. Each one contributes to our main story, but with so many it can be hard for us to know which to tell.
That's why it's so difficult to understand our main story and share it with others. Let's explore this idea further.
How do we affix our thinking onto one moment or one event? Well, we can free ourselves of distractions and sit in silence while attempting to force our thoughts to narrow onto a specific trail of actions, or a specific event.
Broad subjects and time periods, much like the way our lives are laid out, make it difficult to pin down and focus on specific details. It's easy to get lost picking and choosing what's important and what isn't.
Your life is a thread, it’s a narrative woven together through seemingly disparate events and experiences. This thread, once woven, becomes a grand tapestry that’s both strong and beautiful.
Your life is a wonderful and cohesive story. Perhaps it’s not obvious now and perhaps, empirically, it just isn’t yet, but it can be. That’s up to you. Sure, things happen.
I will always grant that tragedies and circumstance happen and we cannot control everything. But by and large the way you present what happens in your life to yourself and to others will shape how you feel and how you go about life as a whole.
This doesn’t mean you should try and shape everything bad into something good. You could do that, but it’s difficult. There aren’t always roses growing in fields of shit, for instance.
However, not everything you have gone through or will go through is a tragedy or a travesty. It isn’t always somebody else’s fault either. The key here is to remember you are human and you are flawed and that mistakes will happen.
Those mistakes are as much a part of your growth as a human being as your victories. They can be blessings. If you make a mistake when you aren’t vulnerable and avoided that same one while you were, presumably due to the prior experience, then that’s a blessing.
That’s wonderful. Every life has a story. Your life is not an exception. Think of it as a grand novel composed of a collection of short stories, each with you at the center and as the protagonist in the overarching story.
If you think back to some of the best books you’ve read you may see the correlation here. The protagonist does not always act like one, they’re human. They don’t always make the best choices, sometimes they’re mean or nasty.
But in the end, they learn, they grow, they live. Every protagonist has a story to tell, and as the main character in your own life, you have your unique narrative. This narrative is rich with emotion, conflict, resolution, and most importantly, growth.
A properly balanced story provides an equal representation of the negative and positive attributes of, I could say the world, but it's actually a being. 'Harry Potter''s a good example. So Harry's the hero, right. But he's tainted with evil. There's a dark and a light in every bit of that narrative. It's well balanced.
Yes, your character is flawed, as all authentic characters are, but these flaws do not diminish your worth. They make you human, they make you relatable, and they make your story real.
Recognizing yourself as the protagonist in your life story can empower you to take control of your narrative.
You can choose to learn from your past, making every setback a setup for a comeback, every mistake a learning opportunity, and every success, no matter how small, a reason to celebrate. But remember, as the protagonist, you're not expected to be perfect.
Perfection is a myth that often hinders us more than it helps. Instead, understand that it's in our imperfections, our challenges, and our failures where we find our most profound lessons and experience our most significant growth.
Seeing your past as a narrative also involves extending grace to yourself. To err is human, and it's essential to remember this as you reflect on your past.
You've stumbled, you've fallen, and you've made mistakes. But these are not markers of failure; instead, they are signs that you're trying, learning, and growing.
Grace is about giving yourself permission to be human, to make mistakes, and to learn from them. It's about acknowledging that you are more than the sum of your past actions, decisions, or circumstances.
You are continually evolving, learning, and becoming. Becoming what? Well, becoming human. Embrace your narrative, with its twists and turns, its highs and lows. See the beauty in its imperfection, its humanity.
Most of all, remember to extend grace to the protagonist of your story—after all, they're doing their best on this remarkable journey called life.
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Andrew Ussery
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