Thursday, September 25, 2008

What does your life story read like?

If you were writing your own life story, how would it read? Something like this?

I had a number of incidents in my life where I almost died. I always had the feeling that it was more than luck. Yet no clear message came through to me about if there was some important reason why I was still alive.

Or this? Got out of school. Got married. Had kids. Worked at a few different jobs until retirement, then spent lots of time golfing and traveling around the country in an RV.

Or this? Married twice. Did a lot of interesting things, but never saved up much money. Learned a lot about aspects of life I never knew growing up. Met a lot of interesting people who gave me lots of different perspectives on life and work and spirit.

Or would your story go like this? Got married young, and had a couple of kids. Had a number of jobs, vacationed every year. Never really got a chance to really feel fulfilled with my work. I made a living, but was always wondering what else there was in life. Felt like the marriage was over long before it was over, but stayed out of inertia. After my kids grew up, got divorced and started wandering around, looking for the part of me that I always thought was missing. Had a number of adventures and romances. Life got more interesting.

Or like this? Had a great time growing up, partied a lot when I was young. As I grew older and had the obligations of holding a job that was not very exciting so that I could support my family, I wondered if the rest of my life would be this uneventful. I had these thoughts when old friends would contact me every now and then. I got twinges of jealousy when I heard about how much more exciting their life was than mine. I took a good look around and wondered what would happen in the next few years.

As long as we are alive we still have time to write new chapters to our life story, but how would we view what has happened so far? How would that set up for the chapters that are coming next?

What does your life story read like? Are you ready to write or rewrite the next chapter?

No comments: