Writing Your Book of Life

Did you know, that as you hustle and bustle through your day, you are writing the greatest story ever told. Your story. I can hear you laughing. "My story? My life? They are not that interesting. They are average. Or boring. Or normal." From a point of view, you could be right. Everyone and everything around you seem to be in the same boat. That really isn't interesting.

I know how you feel. I vividly remember my grandma suggesting I be a writer when I grew up. My answer to her was, "I can't, there's nothing interesting about me." I had determined this based on the books I had read. Whether the books were fiction or non-fiction, they all had more amazing lives than I had. From where I stood, I was just like everyone else.

But what if were wrong. What if our lives are interesting. Our day-to-day doings are different that someone else's. Our hopes, dreams, and worries are different than others. Even if we go through something as a group, the experience feels unique to each of us.

The beauty of our individual stories came back to me earlier this week. My daughter is an archivist at a museum. Her assignment is to cull through artifacts, catalog them, and help curate the pieces the museum uses.

Among her sorting's this week was a handwritten three-page overview of a young man, Clement M. Laws, life. In those three pages, a world of history and living was laid out.

My daughter and I giggled over the parenthesized sentence "(his size covered his age deficiency)." In a few brief sentences he enlists in the army, serves as railroad construction support. He walks "from the Midwest to the Pacific Coast."

By 1890, he's serving in San Francisco. "While waiting there he met his future bride." "He and some of his buddies built him a house."

Following his military duty. He passes his Civil Service examination to become an assistant blacksmith. Finalizing his 68 years of life, in 1928, he works as a qualified machinist.

This brief biography was written by a family member. I assume that Clement M. Laws, left no journals. He likely figured his life was just like everyone else's at that time. He was just doing his jobs. Yet, those jobs, his basic jobs, built the nation and towns we live in. Those three pages, were the Book of Clement Laws Life.

Your Turn:

Maybe you journal about your life, or maybe you don't. Either way, you write your book of life everyday. Since it is your story, make sure to write and live a story you'd love.

Because who knows some family member may write a three-page story of your life. You'll want it to be good.