Your Life Story

Ever consider writing a book about yourself and your experiences?  I have one in the works now.  Will it be a best seller – doubtful.  But it sure is helping me understand how I made my life count.

My San Diego colleague, Lee Silber, has some encouraging words about this in his recent newsletter under the heading ‘A Happy Ending’.  Lee writes:

“If your life were a book, what kind of book would it be? (A thriller, drama, comedy, tragedy, inspirational, self-help . . . ) What’s it all about? What’s the plot? Who are the main characters? Who are the heroes? Who are the villains? How does it end? Aha, it’s a mystery. We don’t know how our story ends, but we do know our story up to this point . . . and how we would like it to end.

Why not write a book about your life? (I can already hear you saying you don’t have the time, you aren’t a “writer” per se, and wondering why do it at all.) If you simply go year by year it makes for a much more manageable project. Only you (and maybe your family and close friends) will ever read your “book” so don’t stress on how well it’s written.

Once you start going back to look at your life I promise it will be worth the effort. Most of us are living in the moment with an eye towards the future, so it’s interesting and insightful to look back. Yes, there are probably painful memories and regrets, but if you just write it as it happened without judgment, you can make it through–and learn a lot in the process.”