Hey you, wanna be a big star in a big movie?

No matter who you are, just by you being able to read this article tells me a lot of things about you, some of them quite obvious, some of them not.

Firstly, you are alive, secondly, you are old enough and you are literate, thirdly you have a device, laptop or phone, and internet with wifi, the great enablers for us to communicate, do business and survive in this day and age. I could carry on, but it’s No.1, the fact that you have to be alive to be reading this that my story revolves around.

First journey

Has it ever sunk in that you and each one of us alive is the star of our own story, movie, stage show, book, or whatever form you prefer to view the story of your life in? If anyone of us ever wished that we could be the main player in a movie, the central character around which the entire story revolves, guess what? It’s happening right now. Our life story already began on the journey to the womb. First chapter: Journey To The Womb. Think of the millions who never even made it to the starting line!

That journey would also be the first chapter for the majority of people who ever lived and those yet to be born. The exceptions of course, in my opinion, being Mary of the Immaculate Conception and those conceived through artificial insemination who took the shortcut or are destined not to do the hard centimeters themselves. What a rush! You don’t know what you missed or are going to miss baby!

Army of supporting cast

Yep, it’s the story of your life, and whether anyone else gives a rat’s ass about it or not, it’s your story, it’s unique. It’s all about you! Without exception, everybody else who happens to be in your story, be they world-famous, superstar sports heroes, actors, singers, artists, saints, or sinners they will ever only be the support cast or extras. If you are a celebrity actor/actress already, good for you. But any other story you may star in is only a substitute for your real-life story.

Everybody, from your parents, doctors, nurses, school teachers, fellow learners, boyfriends, girlfriends, family, friends, wife or husband, children, priest, to the undertaker who gives you a makeover for the start of your final journey, and for anyone I may have left out, are all in a supporting role of a varying degree just for your story. Think of the thousands who ever attended the same concert as you did. They were the extras in your story that day. There’s an army of support characters. It’s really and truly all about you! Just the same as you are in anyone else’s story even if you only made a cameo appearance.

Two ends of the spectrum

Your story may seem to be mundane and forgettable to others, even to yourself, while at the other end of the spectrum it may seem to be interesting and jampacked with action and excitement. But who’s to judge? Just because there doesn’t seem to be much happening on the outside it doesn’t mean there’s isn’t a lot going on underneath the surface. You not getting paid to entertain with your life story. I tend to find people who talk less more interesting anyway than those who talk incessantly and love the attention.

From a cursory, uninformed view, most people’s story probably fits somewhere in the middle. Average is always in the middle.

One man’s Shakespeare is another man’s Stephen King or James Patterson, one woman’s (or man’s) JK Rowling or Martina Cole might be another one’s Enid Blyton or Danielle Steel. It’s all perception and opinion and it doesn’t matter anyway unless you are in it for money and looking for an audience.

Master puppeteer

As I get older I find myself looking back at my life, reminiscing and defining different periods as chapters. I have been doing that a lot recently. I read a lot so I’m used to chapters and I suppose that’s the way I categorize my life. One day when I’m big, maybe I will be able to complete at least one of the three books I started writing at different periods many years ago in my other lives. I will get to decide how each chapter starts and ends, and what’s in the middle. I will form the personalities of my characters, are they going to be poor, rich, ugly, beautiful? Happy, unhappy, do they get to meet the right man or woman in their lives? Do I switch them on or off? Are they going to live or die early in my book? Slowly and painfully, or a quick bullet to the head? Oh, so many lives to control and make or break on a whim or depending on my mood at the time. I’m the master puppeteer pulling all the strings. Control is power.

However, when it comes to my personal life story, I’m not the one in control. I’m the puppet on a string. Although I may be under the impression that I’m making the plans and calling the shots, more often than not it doesn’t pan out the way you want it to. Our stories don’t always go where you want them to go and we all wonder silently to ourselves what happens after THE END. For me, and I think generally for most of us, those thoughts begin infiltrating in a very small way in our teens when we are still invincible. As we grow older those thoughts become insistent questions and harder to ignore. They can often be the biggest pink elephant in the room. All we can hope for is that the last sentence is quick, painless, and merciful.

Ultimately, though, depending on who or what you believe in, it’s the Great Director who is in control, and we just try and follow His script as best as we can.

And just hope we do well enough for a happy ending.