"Write the Script to Your Own Life"

Imagine two young women, identical in every way, right down to their aspirations of becoming great actors.

The first women graduates from her prestigious theater program and struggles to get work. She gets a few tiny roles here and there, but the fame, fortune, and professional success she had hoped for eludes her. Slowly but surly, however, she begins to get herself cast in increasingly prestigious roles, until, at the age of 65, after decades of perseverance, just as her classmates are beginning to retire, she lands her dream role. She wins an Academy Award and finds herself wealthy and respected.

The second woman, in contrast, a graduate of that very same theater program, lands her dream role right out of the gate, winning her Academy Award along with the money and acclaim before she's turned 25. She then spends the remainder of her life failing to live up to that initial success, getting smaller and smaller roles until, at 65, she is unemployed and forgotten.

Both women, within the containers of their respective lives, enjoyed an equal measure of professional success, yet most of us without hesitation would judge the first woman's life to be the happier one. Indeed, early success, followed by a fall, is the script for every tragedy ever written.

This thought experiment is suggested by philosopher Dale Dorsey's 2015 paper entitled The Significance of a Life's Shape. In this example, the shape of the first woman's life appears as an upward trajectory in which she gradually accumulates positive experiences, while the second woman's life is a declining one in which her early positive experiences fade over time.

Of course, this is a pair of cardboard cutout women, invented for the purposes of making a point, but if they were real humans, we would hope that the second woman was self-reflective enough to turn the page on the acting chapter of her life in order to start a new one. There are few things more sad to us than a life spent trying to return to past glories.

I was reminded of this thought experiment by a recent fortune cookie message: "Write the script to your own life." This is what I hope the second woman understood. And it occurs to me that this, and perhaps only this, is what I've always wanted for the children I've cared for. I want them to know, not just intellectually, but to the depths of their being that they are author of their own story and the only way they will ever learn this is to be as free as I can allow them to live the story they wish to script for themselves.

The older I've grown, the bigger the container of my life has grown until I now sometimes even find myself considering my own story within the context of a sweep of time far more expansive than my own life span. I can consider how my current behaviors and beliefs, for instance, have been influenced by the ideas of Ancient Greeks and can, if I choose, write a life script that has me struggle to overcome or deepen those influences. From the perspective of my enlarged life container, I can think about the consequences of my current behaviors and beliefs on future generations -- a life that extends beyond the grave. Ideally, I'd like to script my life in a way that my ancestors evoke my name as some sort of visionary or hero or forefather, although it would be a enough to be remembered as a good man who tried his best. Maybe it's hubris to think I'll be remembered at all, but I like the idea of an eternal life composed of the stories people tell about me when I'm gone.

In contrast, as new humans, young children don't have the experience to comprehend the shape of an entire life, but they nevertheless have a lifetime's experience shaped by the span of a minute, an hour, a day. As babies, the container of their lives is as small as the present moment, but as we grow older the container of our lives grows along with us. Our experience informs us that there is an ever-growing past as well as an ever more likely future full of birthdays to anticipate and doctor's appointments to fear. As adults, we often feel that our job is to "fix" the small container of their lives by writing their scripts for them. In extreme cases, parents try to get their unborn babies into "gifted" programs. (It sounds crazy, I know, but my mother worked in the administrative offices of a large school district and regularly fielded phone calls from parents hoping to do just this.) But even the more reasonable of us can't help scripting our children's stories, at least a little: dressing them for a story cuteness and innocence; buying them "educational" toys or enrolling them in enrichment programs to prepare them for our story of their success; teaching them the manners that fit our story of well-behaved children.

I'm not saying that any of this is bad or wrong. In fact, it's inevitable. That's what parents do if only because our children are central characters, even co-authors, of our own stories. 

As their teacher, however, I have a different role. I want them to have the freedom to create their own scripts, to the degree that's possible in a world of scripts. I want them to know that while they are with me, they can start new chapters on any premise that spurs their interest. Today, they are Captain Marvel or the builder of bridges. Tomorrow they are a homemaker or an artist. Each hour, each day, is a chapter in the story they are scripting for themselves. In this process they learn to not just find, but pursue purpose in their lives, maybe just for this day, but as the chapters follow one-upon-the-next their lives begin to take shape along with each new or renewed purpose.

What I hope for the children in my care is that they become prolific tellers of their own stories, that they learn to dream a million dreams. I hope that the children come to understand that even within the smaller container of their lives, their story is one of many chapters, an infinite number of chapters. They might not all be as fantastic as that woman's early chapter of acting success, they might have anticipated that this or that particular chapter would be longer. But part of this learning is that every chapter eventually comes to an end and if we are to avoid the trajectory of tragedy, we must continue writing chapters in which one of our million dreams, our million potential purposes, stands at the center. They can be long chapters or short ones. That's not necessarily up to us. But the beauty is that we get to be truly alive for a time when we are free to pursue those things that make us come alive. And, as I hope for the second woman in our thought experiment, when the shape of life starts to decline, there is no shame, indeed there is great power, in ending one chapter and starting a new one.

As for the first woman, the one with the presumedly happier life, one has to wonder what she missed out on with all that struggling toward a single goal. We tend to praise these people for their single-mindedness and perseverance, but at what cost? It's hard not to wonder if she got herself trapped in a story of which she was no longer the author. Of course, only she will ever know if the long struggle was worth it, but I hope that she, in her dark moments, discovered meaning beyond her lifelong climb to the top. And as a real human, she had dark moments. No real life is all up or all down. Indeed, the argument can be made that there is no happiness without unhappiness; no success without failure; no win without loss. I expect when she re-reads the chapters of her life, this is what she sees. After all, they say that the only difference between tragedy and comedy is the ending. I think that most of us would prefer to have lived a comedy, a life that's shaped as an incline rather than a decline. It's why we judge her's to have been the happier life, but happiness doesn't have to be defined within the context of an entire life: happiness, if that's even possible, is found in writing our own scripts.

I want the children who come my way to experience this first hand, every day, which is why I want them to play, not the games I assign them, but the games of their choosing. Parents often remark on how differently their children behave at school, that they do different things, pursue different interests, and even have different personalities. This tells me I've created the kind of environment in which purpose-filled autobiographies are being written, one chapter at a time.

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