{"id":74435,"date":"2024-04-19T14:27:52","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T07:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/?p=74435"},"modified":"2024-04-19T14:27:52","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T07:27:52","slug":"only-you-can-write-your-story-never-let-anyone-steal-the-pen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/only-you-can-write-your-story-never-let-anyone-steal-the-pen\/","title":{"rendered":"Only YOU Can Write Your Story, Never Let Anyone Steal the Pen"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a great quote that says, \u201cWhen you write the story of your life, don\u2019t let anyone else hold the pen.\u201d Forget just holding the pen, people will try their hardest to wrench it from your hands and write your story entirely to their liking. Don\u2019t let them.\n

Only YOU Write Your Story, Never Let Anyone Steal the Pen\n
I\u2019ve been thinking about this a lot lately, how we\u2019ve reached this point in our society where we don\u2019t allow anyone to hold their own pen. Every single day, in both big and small ways, we\u2019re not just letting others write our stories for us, we\u2019re doing the same to them. It seems like we\u2019re all playing biographers to each other when we should be playing autobiographers to ourselves.\n
You don\u2019t have to look far to see what I mean. Just post anything- even the most mundane thing- on social media post and you\u2019ll see it in action. You can say \u201capples,\u201d and another person will accuse you of saying \u201coranges.\u201d Before long, everyone- including you- is fully convinced that you really did say \u201coranges.\u201d\n
It seems like such a small thing, that example. Who cares if everyone thinks you said \u201coranges\u201d instead of \u201capples,\u201d right? Ultimately, it\u2019s just words on a screen and it doesn\u2019t affect your life. Except it does. In that small moment, that seemingly trivial moment, you\u2019ve allowed someone else to rewrite your story to their narrative.\n
Worse, you\u2019ve made it easier for others to keep doing it, to rewrite bigger parts of your story. See, once you let someone grab the pen- even if it\u2019s just for a teeny-tiny second- it\u2019s almost impossible to grab it back. They\u2019ll pass it around. Play keep-away with it.\n
Before you know it, they\u2019ll use it to write larger parts of your life\u2019s tale. Your life becomes a biography written by people that don\u2019t even know you. After all, not a single person on this earth knows your story better than you.\n
Don\u2019t let your life become a biography when it should be an autobiography\n
Just like with a literal biography, when you let someone else write your story, your \u201caudience\u201d never actually gets the full real picture. Never gets to know the real you. Even someone with the best intentions and most skilled pen can\u2019t capture all of the little things, the small nuances, that make you who you are.\n
Sadly, most people trying to write our stories don\u2019t have the best intentions for us- or the most skilled pen, for that matter. No, they usually have very nefarious reasons for wanting the world to see us in a different way. An ex who wants to rewrite the story of your breakup. A sibling who wants your family to think YOU\u2019RE the reason behind a feud. Even a stranger who wants the internet to think that you said something you didn\u2019t.\n
So, you have to grab ahold of that pen with all of your might when someone tries to steal it. Hold on as tight as you can and write your own story. More importantly, write it the way YOU want, even if you think people will judge you for it.\n
The world will judge you no matter what, so write the story you want\u2026\n
There\u2019s a quote that goes, \u201cThe world is going to judge you no matter what you do, so live your life the way you want.\u201d The same goes for writing your story. It\u2019s not enough to just hold onto the pen; you alone have to decide what you want to add to your tale. Just like you should never justify the things that make you happy, you shouldn\u2019t ever feel like you need to \u201cedit\u201d your life to fit someone else\u2019s idea of what your narrative should be.\n
If you want to live a fairy tale story filled with knights in shining armor, go for it\u2026even if the world says real feminists don\u2019t need knights. If you want to live an adventure story, trotting around the globe in search of lost treasures, do it\u2026even if the world says that it\u2019s an \u201cimpractical\u201d lifestyle. Heck, if you want to live a horror story filled with ghost hunting adventures, go for it\u2026even if everyone says ghosts aren\u2019t real.\n
The point is, you decide everything about your story. The characters, the setting, the genre, the tropes. Every single aspect of your story- your LIFE- is up to you. Don\u2019t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. When you allow others to steal the pen, you become a supporting character in your own tale when you should be shining as the main character.\n
I\u2019ll leave you with one last amazing quote (more like a poem, actually) by Stephanie Bennet-Henry, that really sums up everything I\u2019m trying to get across here. It\u2019s a long one, but so worth the read.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s a great quote that says, \u201cWhen you write the story of your life, don\u2019t let anyone else hold the pen.\u201d Forget just holding the pen, people will try their hardest to wrench it from your hands and write your story entirely to their liking. Don\u2019t let them. Only YOU Write Your Story, Never Let\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":74441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[642],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-74435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-moral-story"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Only-YOU-Can-Write-Your-Story-Never-Let-Anyone-Steal-the-Pen.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}