I wrote a “choose your own adventure” essay as part of my undergraduate college applications. The reader could chose one of two endings, the first being that I got accepted into college, the latter being that I did not, and held an unfulfilling job, one that did not enable me to express my creativity and wanting of “making a difference” and being a counselor. I loved the essay.

They didn’t like it, and I didn’t get in.

So, at the time, I created a “story” of why I didn’t. It was based on the illusion that it was due to some internal personal fault. In reality, I finally came to realize that not getting into to my first top college choice was just an event. But, for the longest time, my “story” had been that I was not “good enough” to get in. Funny enough, not getting into my top school was the best thing that could have happened to me. In the long run, my “idea” of what was the better choice, actually was not.

When we “write,” our stories of how we see the world, we have to learn to disintegrate the parts of the story that do not really “fit” the larger plot, the actual reality. Sometimes events that happen do not turn out as we expect, but end up being exactly the right thing for us. Nevertheless, we may create a “story” that it means something negative about ourselves, or our situation. For example, how many of you have had the realization, years later, that what you thought was best for you, at the time, really was not? Hindsight truly can be 20/20, don’t you think? Is there anything that you would want to tell your younger self from 5, 10, even 20 years ago? Is there something that you didn’t know then, but do now?