Once Upon a Time …

Who can resist?

You’re already leaning in, wondering what will unfold. Who’s doing what? Where are we? What’s going to go wrong? SOMETHING has to go wrong! Who’s the main character? Who’s their buddy? Who’s the villain? Are they the same character and the hero doesn’t know it?

What is the main character trying to do? How are they going to get what they want?

Do they want a boyfriend? A girlfriend? A dog? A bazillion dollars? Do they just want their mom and dad to be happy? Do they want to not die? Or, do they want to travel to Europe or get a new job? Doesn’t matter. They have to want something. Goldilocks just wanted to take a walk. Then she was tired, hungry, and sleepy. And pretty finicky. Many interpretations and versions of the story exist, but people do things for a reason. So do characters in a book. And people living their lives.

“Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…” begins the Star Wars meg-hit that has spawned a gazillion dollars in revenue and a gazillion fans. Star Wars is almost a perfect representation of Joseph Conrad’s Hero’s Journey that pulls us in. Every time!

Our lives are “hero’s journeys.” We are born, and then we get called to the adventure of our lives. What happens every single day is a mini hero’s journey. It’s hard to think of your life like Star Wars, but maybe you’re Luke Skywalker today. You’re having breakfast, cereal, like every morning, when you see a car accident outside your apartment. You dash outside to see if someone is hurt. The person in the bashed up car is your friend. Your schoolteacher. Your future spouse. A drug dealer. Dead.

You call 911. The lines are busy. BUSY!? The person who caused the accident starts to run away. You’re… an off duty cop. A martial arts teacher. A Longshoreman. In a wheelchair.

Other neighbors look out their windows, but no one comes out. It’s just you and the person bleeding out on the ground. You’re in a weekend school studying to be a nurse. You have had one class in CPR. Your dog has come out the front door and is running loose without a leash. He might get hit! The person on the ground moans. Your dog causes an oncoming car to swerve and hit the telephone pole across the street from where you’re bending over the bleeding body.

What do you do? What happens next? Yes, and then what? Are you in the future? The past? Is this character you? Or if you make it the older you or someone else, it’s a different story. A different kind of car. An alternate universe?A parallel universe? Is it a car or is it a horse and buggy? A hovercraft?

WHAT’S THE POINT? We. Are. All. Stories. Once upon a time…we were born. Once upon a time… we will die. As they say, what happens in between is the story that sits on the little dash between the two dates on our tombstones.

Make yours a good story!! We want to read it.

If you would like to read more of my story, come back here, and sift through my posts at right. And I’ll visit your life’s story.

Not too cold. Not too hot. Just right.

Image compliments of Pexel’s free images.