Who’s the Star of Your Story?

Who’s the star of your story?

Many people aren’t the stars of their own story. In Tad Williams’ Otherland series (an excellent book, by the way) one of the characters, Jeremiah Drako, asks himself what the author of his story expects him to do. He sees himself as a character who serves basically as a prop - a doorman or a spear carrier in someone else’s life, not as the lead character in his own life.

Each of you has many roles in life. You have been a child, and may be a parent. You have been an employee or an employer. You have been a husband or a wife, a student or a teacher. You have played a role where you have been a supporting character - from someone else’s point of view.

Always, though, always you have been the star of your own story, the protagonist. The roles you played, you chose. They weren’t written in for you by some exterior author in the sky. They weren’t forced on you by the society in which you were raised.If you believe differently - if you, too, feel that you are someone else’s servant, wondering what they expect you to do next, you have abdicated control of your own life.

Every day you make a choice. You choose to live as a supporting character in someone else’s story. Or you choose to live as the protagonist of your own story. Even if you think you don’t choose, you do. Whichever stance you choose, from an outside point of view you may engage in exactly the same activitiies, but the interior motivation is completely different. The stance of the spear carrier leads to stagnation and bitterness. The stance of the protagonist leads to development and happiness.

So I ask you again.

Who’s the star of your story?

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