The Book of Life

Life is a book. Each of us has a story within that book. From the day we learn to speak, we become storytellers of our life by what we perceive through our mind. We use words to formulate ideas, and we communicate these ideas to the people around us. Our ideas are concepts that have evolved from our environment: our parents, our teachers, our friends, and even strangers. Every day we are impacted by beliefs, opinions and attitudes of society, and we use these experiences to create our story.

Our story can be written any way we would like. We are not only the author, but also the main character. We can give ourselves strengths or weaknesses, and every day we can create a new theme. The beauty of this storytelling is that no one story is exactly the same. In fact, no one person in this world is exactly the same.

We have a choice. Every day when we wake up, we have the ability to give our main character strength to make the best out of that day. If we start our day with good thoughts, and remind ourselves that life is a gift, we can get through anything.

It sounds so simple, right? Wrong. In fact, writing a happy story is one of the hardest things to do. But why? Well, life is full of fog. Fog that permeates the brain and makes a person’s mindset distorted. It clouds the mind with things that are stored by habit, not by choice, and it steals the clarity that we wish to seek. Whether it be the unhappy person on the subway that yells at you for no reason, the angry teacher that told you you would never succeed or the cool kid that called you a dork; fog is everywhere in life, and it takes a bold author to clear the air. Tough? Yes. Impossible? Never.

Throughout my practices with spirituality and life, I have learned four very important things. These four agreements that I have made with myself have helped me immensely in creating a story that I am proud of. They have helped me see good in bad, right in wrong, and they have helped me understand that this life is first and foremost about my happiness, which in turn creates happiness for others. These four things are the following: be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, always do your best and don’t make assumptions. Now let me give you a little insight on each.

Impeccability of word. What does this mean? Well think about it. What you say, you originally thought. What you think, you believe. And what you believe is what you live by. So if you’re saying things that are not beneficial to your happiness, growth, positive mentality, etc. then in turn you will not believe that you have the ability to live a happy life. Your word creates your story. So be wise with the words you choose and make sure to lift yourself up. If you say you can’t do something enough times, then you best believe you won’t be able to do it. But if you say you can, the possibilities are endless.

Don’t take anything personally. DON’T! It’s not worth it, and I will tell you why. Let me circle back to the statement above that said “no one story is exactly the same”. Every person has their own perception on how they see life. Seeing that you can never get into someone else’s mind and think the way that they think, you will never understand why or how they see something. Every person on this earth perceives things according to their own story (opinion, beliefs, attitude), and that means that it has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with them. Do you ever have that day when you accidentally bump into someone on the street because you were looking down at your phone, and the stranger comes back at you with a completely uncalled for act of anger or disdain? Well, let’s look at this for a second. This person has never met you before, they know nothing about you, not even your name, but they are SO angry with what just happened. How is this possible? Well, it’s their own issue, it has nothing to do with you. They obviously had some sort of incident that has put them in an unfortunate mood and they saw the opportunity to pass the poison along to someone else, so they did. Again, nothing to do with you. I’ve had my days where I’m in a great mood and someone bumps into me and they say sorry and it’s all good. Then there are other days where I’m stressed out and I’ve had a bad day and every person in my way pisses me off. And on those days, it has nothing to do with that person, it has everything to do with my attitude and my own problem. I’ve learned to deal with situations like this and I try to control myself. This is not only for the benefit of others, because I don’t want to be ruining anyone’s day, but also for the benefit of myself. Why am I stressed or having a bad day in the first place? Well, I’ve probably taken something personally.

Always do your best. This is key. We all know we have that little voice inside of our head that talks to us constantly. My voice likes to battle itself. “Do your laundry, your hamper is full!” “You can do your laundry tomorrow, you still have underwear left.” We’ve all been there. Luckily, what I’ve learned from experience, is to always listen to the voice that’s telling you to do whatever it is that seems less admirable–it always seems to be the right thing to do. When we do this, we find ourselves doing our best. When we do our best, we have no guilt towards ourselves for not doing what we should’ve been doing, and that little voice inside our head can’t judge us. When we do our best we feel good about ourselves, we are more productive and we learn to discipline ourselves to the best of our abilities. It works!

Don’t make assumptions. My mother always said, “You know what happens when you assume… you make an ASS out of U and ME”. Assuming gets us know where. We aren’t mind readers, we don’t know how other people think or feel, so why would we assume anything? When we assume something, we put our words in someone else’s mouth, and that just never seems to lead in the right direction. Confrontation can be hard, and asking questions can be hard for some of us as well, but it always pays off in the end. When we ask questions, we get answers, and in turn we feel free from the over analyzation that occurs in our minds. The truth will set you free, and when we assume, there is no truth to be told.

So here we are, writing our stories this very second. We have the power to lead our story in any direction we please, because we are the authors and it always comes down to our choice. I hope that you choose happiness, and I hope that you choose a main character that lacks fear and is full of perseverance. The story line may be full of hardships and battles, and ups and downs, but if you fight hard enough and remember that you are in control, then you will succeed.

The end. 😉

Xx
Sonja