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Your story may not have a happy beginning: We all have challenges and limiting circumstances in life. Do these challenges make us who we are? A part of my reasoning says yes because it is the quality of our challenges that determine our present and henceforth the future. Another aspect says – yes the past is an occurrence, but does that mean your future is limited because of it? Or is there something we can do about it? This article is about trying to understand the meaning of – Your story may not have a happy beginning.

Oddly my first attribution of this quote was to Paulo Coelho from the alchemist (However, I’ve started noticing that there’s a representation of this in KungFu Panda). As a story, this is a beautiful book right – it is about chasing a wild dream that catches my fancy. It is magically woven together as a story wherein this statement makes perfect sense. Who you are cannot limit your dreams – our dreams drive us forward instead.

Meaning of Your story may not have such a happy beginning

Our narratives are a representation of our past, isn’t it? We can paint a great or a grim picture depending on the circumstances that we wish to choose. i.e we can have a magical story or a story filled with challenges, despair and horror. Regardless of the story that we choose, it is an event in the past. Something happened a long time ago. As the Lion King quote says – you can either choose to run from the past or learn from it.

So, what is the meaning of – your story may not have such a happy beginning:

Our past is just an occurrence, not a prediction: I’ll start with this – your past happened because of certain reasons and limitations. But they don’t entirely define who you are now. There will be lessons, pains and maybe some hidden trauma too. The question to ask and maybe even tell ourselves is that the past is history. It gives us an explanation about why things happened a certain way. But the past can’t be an excuse nor a rationale for us to feel like victims.

We can feel sorry or decide to move on: It is a horrible place to feel helpless and sorry about ourselves. Sympathy might sound like a respite but it can also act as a slow poison. Along the way, we pick up a few experiences and emotions – some of which are absolutely unnecessary and detrimental to our personality. If we keep feeling sorry or finding reasons for why things don’t work for us, there is no moving ahead. What you do with the reasons is more important than hiding under those reasons. We can understand life better by looking backwards, yet life is about moving forward right?

The rest of the story is what you choose to be: Our narratives and stories are amazing. We can tune them to reflect how horrible the world is. Or we can change it to reflect on all the things that we have learned. I’m not sure if there is a right way or not. But the truth is that our life is in the present and a future that we want to create. I.e it is the story that we want to create for ourselves and move towards that dream. In its entirety, it comes back to identifying our dreams and breaking them down into actions and goals.

The past is not equal to your future: This is both good news and bad. Good because it means that you can change all the fallings and decide to move on. Bad because you can’t rest on the laurels of the past. Life ought to be about moving ahead and keep moving ahead.

Your story may not have a happy beginning, but that doesn’t make you who you are!

The Alchemist