What if we really understood that our lives are a story we tell, and we have both the ability and the permission to rewrite it, what would be different? The answer is — everything.
If we were actors in a movie, we would receive a script to memorize. However, almost every day until filming is finished, we would get revised scripts, written on a different color of paper than the previous one, so we would know which one was the new script.
When we write books, we edit them over, and over, and over, again. We submit them for review to others, and based on the feedback we receive, we rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite the story. We change the title; we change the cover, all to improve the experience of the story.
Isn’t it funny, and not in a good way, that we are so willing to rewrite scripts and books, and yet are so often stuck in the stories that define our lives.
Our stories are mostly written, directed, and produced by others; first through our surroundings, the life we found ourselves in as a child, and the stories told to us by our family and friends about who we are, based on their story, which was also told to, and accept by, them.
Then we surrender our imagination to entities like the media, who, for the most part, don’t imagine better stories for our lives, but instead rewrite them for the worst, not better, and we agree with the rewrite.
Instead of deciding if we really want to be that character, or if we like the script, or imagine a better story, we simply agree to what was written for us, and do our best to thrive within it. Then we repeat those stories, with very few changes, for the remainder of our lives as if they were true.
However, given that is a story, we have so many other options. We could rewrite the script at least daily. We could edit the character, called us, as often as we wish. We could change the title. We could update the cover.
In the series of books called The Lensmen, written in 1939, writer E.E. Doc Smith creates worlds, universes, and characters that are far beyond what we experience now so many years later. I marveled at his imagination and wondered if I could imagine something so detailed and complete.
The answer is, yes, I could; and you could, because we did. We call it our life story. However, for the most part, unlike an exciting book, it is very unimaginative.