Everybody views the world from a particular perspective. I have a friend who thinks of his life in terms of the clock. He sees every opportunity and every task in terms of how much time each will require of him. I know another who sees her life as a big symphony, with sweeping movements and the occasional crescendo. I see my life largely in terms of a story.

I think that it is very common to view life as a story, and in many ways, this makes perfect sense. A person’s life has a beginning, middle, and end and is sometimes like a comedy and sometimes like a tragedy. Much of the time, life feels like a mystery. We hope for a happy ending, but we won’t know until the final scene plays out.

While all of these things are true, I notice one enormous flaw in this perspective. Each of us tends to think of his or her life as the story, though in reality, it is only a story—a humble chapter in a much larger story. This may seem like a subtle difference, but it’s not. Allow me to explain.

If I see my life as the story, then I will view my life as totally separate from anything that comes after me. I won’t be too concerned with whether or not my life has any impact after I die, with the possible exception of the desire to be remembered. When I die my story will simply end and someone else’s will begin. This perspective forces me to think in extremes—either seeing my life as too important or believing it to be irrelevant.

Also, if my life is the story, then it started when I did, when I was born, so I won’t be concerned with what happened before me. It seems to me that Americans think very little of heritage. We like to know if we had pirates or pilgrims in our family trees, but that just adds a bit of musical underscore to our stories. It doesn’t really alter our thinking or assist us in any way. When I think my story begins with me, I feel isolated, as if I am on my own. I determine that I’ll need to figure everything out myself, start everything from the beginning without guidance, and make all the mistakes that come with doing those things by myself. I will refuse to learn from the triumphs and tragedies of others.

If I believe that my story is the story, and my life begins to look as though it’s not going to be a grand adventure in which the treasure is found and the evil is conquered, I’m going to panic. It has to end well. It has to have a happy ending, I might think, or my story is a bad one. Perhaps it’s not looking like an out-and-out tragedy, but maybe it’s looking like it’s not going to make any sense. That’s almost as bad, so I’ll try and force it to have a happy ending—at any cost. I’ll do things that are silly or stupid and possibly harmful to myself and others. But because my story is the only one that matters, they are justified.