"You are the author of your own life story." This simple saying that I'm sure is sick and tired of being embroidered on throw pillows and vinyled onto distressed wooden placards is one that I stand firmly behind. I have never, not even for a second, thought that anyone else could decide what was going to happen in my life. But sometimes, I feel as though it would be easier to hand the pen over to someone else. Jane Austen, perhaps. Maybe J.K. Rowling. There are times when I am certain that just about anyone could do a better job writing my story than I can, but unfortunately, the pen seems to be stuck in my hand. My story is incapable of being written by anyone other than myself. And if the pen really is mightier than the sword, well then I suppose it is time to learn how to wield this powerful tool.
I feel as though for the large majority of my life, I simply went through the motions. I lived out the exposition of my story, where the characters were introduced and the setting was revealed. Day after day I went through the motions of going to school and going to work and doing the things which were expected of me. I'll be the first to admit that it was a pretty dry exposition. Not to say I didn't have a good upbringing, because believe me, I have the fondest memories from those years. But it wasn't until I went to college that I really felt the power I held over my life.
Suddenly decisions became mine. If I didn't want to go to class, I didn't have to. If I wanted to eat Doritos and Oreos for dinner, there was no one there to stop me. It was a crazy freedom that I took advantage of, yet somehow, I missed the point of the privilege completely. Although I felt like I was taking control of my life, I was often frustrated by the pieces that seemed to be missing. I wore myself out trying to mold my life into the perfect story. I had an image of how things was supposed to go and was discouraged when I found my circumstances veering away from that vision. As a slightly OCD perfectionist obsessed with having a plan, it was hard to let go of that control and realize that I just needed a little patience--something I was severely lacking in.
Patience is not an easy thing to develop and I'm not going to pretend like I have mastered the virtue. But I have developed a new perspective and a new approach to writing out my life story. There are simply things that I cannot change. No matter how hard I try to write a Mr. Darcy into my story or how long I wait for my acceptance to Hogwarts to come (I'm sure it just got really lost in the mail), I can't do anything but wait. It can be infuriating, reading through an entire book waiting for the couple to get together or for the bad guy to lose, but if those things happened in the beginning, the rest of the book wouldn't be worth reading.
As much as it totally sucks accepting the fact that life isn't going to go exactly as I want, it's actually quite fun realizing that there is so much to my story that I do have control over. Sloughing class and prematurely giving myself diabetes is only scratching the surface of the things I can decide for myself. My life doesn't have to be a predictable cliché, nor does it have to be an action packed adventure novel. That's the beauty of it. I get to choose. And each chapter gets to be different. I can take as many twists and turns as I want, transitioning from one chapter to the next in this crazy thing called life. [Personally, I am a fan of the chapter in my life where I decide to move to Paris on a whim.]
So my advice to you would be to accept the things in your life that you can't change and change the things in your life that you can't accept. Don't let anyone else tell you how your story is supposed to go because nobody gets to decide that except for you. Because after all, you are the author of your own life story. Now go out there and write a story worth reading....or better yet, a story worth LIVING.
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