Bella is the main character in her story. The same goes for Batman. Every story you've ever read, or every movie you've ever seen has several things in common: A main character for starters. How do you know you're the main character in your own story?
For every story to be a good story, the main character needs to make choices and show a lot of spine. There also needs to be someone who creates a mess of things--chaos. There also needs to be a strong set of rules, and usually someone who goes against those rules. And sometimes, just sometimes, there is a victim.
Just because you're living your life, doesn't mean you're the hero in your own story. You might not be Bella just because you want to be. You might be playing the role of a victim, or you might be the mess maker in your own life. If you wish you were Batman, you might really be the Joker. It all boils down to the choices you're making for yourself. Are you being true to what matters to you? If you want peace in your home, and peace in your heart, are you creating chaos by hurting the ones you care about with your words?
Just for today try this one thing--it comes from a saying my widowed mother used to tell us five children around the dinner table when I was younger--"If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."
So, if you've go a little Pride & Prejudice going on, resist the urge to say anything unkind. Bite your tongue if you have to. Be heroic, and see what happens. You might not notice anything on the outside, but you might feel a change take place inside, where it matters most anyway. Be true to who you are: good, worthy and loved whether you believe it or not.
In the weeks and months ahead, I'm going to be doing blog posts under several themes. This one will always begin with "Your Story."
For every story to be a good story, the main character needs to make choices and show a lot of spine. There also needs to be someone who creates a mess of things--chaos. There also needs to be a strong set of rules, and usually someone who goes against those rules. And sometimes, just sometimes, there is a victim.
Just because you're living your life, doesn't mean you're the hero in your own story. You might not be Bella just because you want to be. You might be playing the role of a victim, or you might be the mess maker in your own life. If you wish you were Batman, you might really be the Joker. It all boils down to the choices you're making for yourself. Are you being true to what matters to you? If you want peace in your home, and peace in your heart, are you creating chaos by hurting the ones you care about with your words?
Just for today try this one thing--it comes from a saying my widowed mother used to tell us five children around the dinner table when I was younger--"If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."
So, if you've go a little Pride & Prejudice going on, resist the urge to say anything unkind. Bite your tongue if you have to. Be heroic, and see what happens. You might not notice anything on the outside, but you might feel a change take place inside, where it matters most anyway. Be true to who you are: good, worthy and loved whether you believe it or not.
In the weeks and months ahead, I'm going to be doing blog posts under several themes. This one will always begin with "Your Story."
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I've always found it interesting that so many people don't realize that they aren't the main character in everyone else's stories too.I was talking with a friend once, about a situation where I'd been deeply hurt by another person, and after he listened to me for a while he stopped me and said, "Jim, no one has ever done anything to you in your whole life."
I was flabbergasted. I had a list.
But when I started to make gobbling noises like a turkey he held up his hand and said, "Hear me out. How many times have you been so intent on getting what you wanted in a situation that you ran right over someone else doing it?" I had to admit that there had been lots of those times. "Okay," he went on, "when you did that, were you cackling and thinking to yourself how you were really going to make them suffer, or were you just oblivious to how your actions affected them?" It was the latter, of course. "Well," he concluded, "it's the same way almost every time someone hurts you - you aren't the target, but they're trying to get what they want and you have the misfortune to find yourself in their way. Not your fault, but not about you, either." He spoiled righteous indignation for me forever - now every time someone cuts me off in traffic, or lies to me, or whatever, I almost always realize after I've been mad for a few seconds that I've done that same thing to other people, and remember that I was just being self-absorbed and oblivious, not sadistic. Short of a few incidents that really were driven by people's malice, he was right. And even then, that malice was about their characters, not about their targets.
Kind of like one of the Four Agreements in the book by that title by Don Miguel Ruiz - never take anything personally. It makes it less painful and turns ugly behavior into a phenomenon more like bad weather, something to watch for and avoid if possible, but not to shake one's fist at the sky and yell "Why me?" about.
Karey (K.S.R. Kingworth) Shane's Blog
I want to be sunshine. I'm not quite sure how to shine, but I have a message of peace, hope and love to share. And it's not what you'd think.
