Don’t forget the surprise

If my life was a book, spread across pages for people to read, what would it say? Page after page filled with seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. But what would it really look like?

We tend to look at our lives based on chapters. We measure success by standards decided by our culture. We put titles on the chapters and then try to fill them with things that sound good or with ideas society will embrace.  So, is that still our life or at some point does the story start to sound like someone else’s?

We look back at our story’s beginning to try and figure out how it will end, failing to recognize that we are not the author but the co-author of this story. As we plot the next chapter, so that eleven is better than ten, we miss things. We overwrite and what can get lost are not necessarily the plot but the element of surprise. Surprise is the most interesting part of every story and yet when it comes to writing our own we prefer to know ahead of time what will happen. None of us really knows how our story will end or even take shape tomorrow and yet we try so hard to make it so.

Maybe it’s time to release our grip on the pen or in this case the computer screen. Perhaps the end of our story should not be based on how it began. Release the pen, open the story line and don’t allow those around you to feed or steal the plot.

We get one story you and I and we should write it not to impress or mimic what’s around us. Instead, we should give ourselves room to breath, be quiet, listen and remember we are not the lone author. This is a joint project. Now, go find out what the other half of the team sees and write it down.

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