never saw daylight.
The trouble was, while Seymour had seen many parts of the world, he had barely explored the recesses of his own heart. An only child, Seymour had grown up somewhat emotionally neglected. His kindly but stoic father, who had worked in construction, had died of a heart attack when Seymour was only eleven. His mother, a nurse, had often worked overtime to put food on the table and send her son to college, and she had suffered periodic bouts of depression that sometimes left her bedridden. With little personal attention and guidance, Seymour turned to television and peers for clues about how to find happiness, but the proffered solutions — making money and womanizing — left him feeling empty.
When he thought of himself as the protagonist of his own story, Seymour recognized where this particular character arc would end if he didn’t change: with the character becoming a lonely, rich, and unhappy man. Seymour also worried about dying young, like his father. Instead, he wanted more inspiring work that left him with the same sense of enthusiasm he felt returning from his travels. The idea arose of starting an international importing business using some of his overseas contacts. He also wanted to learn how to play the guitar. With the right woman, he could build a family of his own. But to do all this, he first needed to take charge of his story, get to the bottom of his emotional blocks, and get better acquainted with his true self. His happiness and health were at stake.
What’s Your Character Arc?
While you can’t predict your future, you can take charge of the direction of your character arc if you’re willing to explore your protagonist’s terrain with the same sense of adventure and awe you would bring to a trek through the Himalayas.
Every protagonist has a character arc, a particular way he or she matures and develops in response to the shifting tides of the story. This area of growth is the threshold between the hero’s present self and his or her aspirational self; some call this a person’s “growing edge,” a term I like and use in this book. At the outset of every narrative, the protagonist possesses certain viewpoints and capabilities that have gotten the character by until now. Inevitably, situations arise that challenge these perspectives or demand other skills the hero doesn’t yet possess, thus creating the main conflict of the narrative. After all, if the character already possessed the necessary skills or a broader perspective, there would be no challenge and no conflict in the story. Ultimately, the protagonist faces an opportunity to change in some way. The degree to which the protagonist embraces this challenge, and his or her growing edge, or tries to avoid the challenge determines who he or she becomes, for better or for worse.
Similarly, you are an ever-evolving protagonist on a journey of self-discovery with choices to make about how to respond to the stuff that happens in your life. As an ever-evolving protagonist, not only do you possess the power to adapt to plot twists, but you can view these unexpected difficulties as opportunities for personal growth and transformation. In fact, you can coauthor your own story by regarding every person and situation that shows up in your narrative as an invitation to further hone a different aspect of your character, or one of your growing edges.
That, of course, includes antagonists — the so-called villains and foils that make life challenging — as well as supporting characters and any life events, welcome and unwelcome. After all, just because your life is a story doesn’t mean it’s supposed to be a fairy tale. In fact, even fairy tales aren’t joy rides. If you study them carefully, you’ll notice that serious difficulties always beset the main characters before they get to their happy ending. Cinderella may meet her prince and become transformed, but she has to sweep a whole bunch of chimneys, and endure much humiliation, before she gets there. Jack has to outrun a homicidally hungry giant to capture his treasure in the sky. We not only expect that the main characters of stories will be challenged in some essential way, but we anticipate it.
In stories, the status quo is not just boring, it’s unacceptable. Whether we consciously recognize it or not, could it be that deep down we understand that something needs to happen to the main character for his or her own good or, dare I say, growth? If so, then why is it that it’s so easy to lose this perspective when it comes to telling the story of our own life, when our own status quo is shaken? As the protagonist of our own heroic narrative, doesn’t it seem silly not to recognize that the things that happen to us are what offer opportunities to actualize our potential, calling forth perhaps dormant aspects of our personality that we need to resolve the situation?
Life constantly presents us with challenges. Should we choose to meet them, these keep us growing and evolving from chapter to chapter. Sure, you may not have a wicked witch chasing you like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but chances are you’ve had to contend with being lost, dealing with difficult people, and accepting that the authority figures you counted on did not deserve your trust.
Unlike some of the heroes from fairy tales and popular fiction, however, you don’t necessarily need to vanquish your nemesis — you simply need to explore who you are as an evolving character and understand your narrative.
Embracing Your Inner Hero or Heroine
Human beings are natural-born storytellers. In his book The Stories We Live By, psychologist Dan McAdams, director of the Foley Center for the Study of Lives, holds that, whether or not we realize it, every individual “comes to know who he or she is by creating a heroic story of the self.”9 These personal myths help us weave together disparate threads from the past, present, and anticipated future into a coherent and meaningful narrative that captures who we are and hope to become. As McAdams explains:
If you want to know me, then you must know my story, for my story defines who I am. And if I want to know myself,…then I too must come to know my story…. It is the story I continue to revise, and tell to myself (and sometimes to others) as I go on living…. This is not the stuff of delusion or self-deception. We are not telling ourselves lies. Rather, through our personal myths, each of us discovers what is true and what is meaningful in life.10
Occasionally, however, people balk when I invite them to embrace their inner hero. They wonder if such concentrated focus on their own story is self-indulgent navel-gazing or even narcissistic. If you have similar reservations, the following distinction will hopefully alleviate any concerns.
One primary difference between self-discovery and contemplating one’s belly button is intention. Navel-gazing is typically an end in itself; it describes when we become preoccupied with our own emotions, thoughts, and internal world at the expense of relating to others. Self-discovery, however, is about self-awareness; we explore our thoughts, feelings, preferences, talents, and vulnerabilities so that we might see ourselves as others do and improve our ability to relate with others and succeed in the world. The aim of this type of introspection is to enhance our capacity for love, compassion, understanding, and self-reflection. Self-discovery presumes that intimate knowledge of oneself precedes the ability to know and be intimate with others. The more we understand who we are, what makes us tick, the more we can share our gifts with other people and society.
Second, your story matters. Every person’s story matters. We are moved and affected by all the stories around us. When we marvel at public figures, athletes, and individuals who overcome tremendous odds to accomplish great feats, we regard their life stories as transformative and important. Their stories inspire everyone to make similar difficult, heroic, or compassionate choices in their own ways. Consider great humanitarians like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. They spent considerable time in self-reflection, developing self-awareness, and valuing the importance of their own narratives — not to congratulate themselves but in order to serve causes larger than themselves.
In this regard, when we think of ourselves as the protagonist in our own story, and cultivate that story, it is not self-absorption but our birthright. Each of us needs to know our own story because it helps us define and understand who we are in the world and what it means to be human. The great
