Life Story

Stories. I have a rather weird habit of narrating my daily actions in my head as if they were a story – “She walked out to feed the horses” or “She curled up on her bed with her toy in her arms.” Sometimes the thoughts are deliberate, but more often than not they’re just floating around in the back of my head, rather subconsciously.

Each day is a story. There’s a beginning and an ending. More likely than not, there’s some climax – good or bad – to the day. Maybe the story wouldn’t be interesting enough to write down; and then again maybe it would be. But apparently it’s interesting enough to be worth living because, you know what, I live it. Every single day, I live a new story.

So do you. Every day is a new story.

And each new day is a new chapter in a larger book – maybe a Year or a Month. And each of those books is part of the volume called Life.

Your life.

Each life is a Story of stories, and everybody’s Story is different from one another’s. We do different things, we take different actions. But even if the general facts of our life – what we do in the day – are very similar, our stories are still not the same because our perspectives on life differ. Daily chores can be mundane or relaxing. Fresh snowfall can be awesome sledding or formidable roads. The stars are ordinary or unfathomable. The rock in the path is an obstacle or a challenge.

The story changes according to our perspective.

I was working on a Christmas present for a friend and I wanted to draw a picture that told the stories of two lives and how those lives merged. My friend had told me that when he and my sister went hiking, they saw things differently. He was always looking for the next mountain to climb, while she was always looking at the flowers along the trail and feeling the underside of mushrooms.

The same day. The same hike. The same trail.

Two different people. Two different perspectives. Two different views. Two different stories.

Merged into one.

Each life story enriched by contact with the other.

Never underestimate the value of your life story. Maybe it doesn’t seem wonderful or important to you, but you don’t have to accomplish extraordinary things or somehow change the world to have a story worth living.

Your perspective alone, your life story, can be enough to change the world for somebody else.