"Ultimately, the story you tell that will be the most compact and meaningful will be about the choices you've made. In the end, we are our choices."
- Jeff Bezos
Think back to the biggest decisions you've made in your life. Now imagine yourself telling the story of each of those choices. Are you happy with those stories?
Our life on this precious Earth is incredibly short. We've been dead for the entire history of the universe, and we'll soon return to that state. The existence we've been granted is nothing short of a miracle. Consciousness is just the cherry on top.
Consciousness is what has allowed us to transcend the limits of our biological programming. It has given us the ability to choose. The history of the advancement of the human species is that of the stories that we collectively believe. Belief is a choice. We evolved from our hunter-gather days as a result of the stories we choose to tell each other, and the stories we all choose to believe.
Who we become is ultimately the product of our experiences, which are the product of our choices, which are the product of who we are. Who we are and who we want to be are the one and the same, separated only by the passage of time.
The rational buddhist within me pushes back on the idea that what determines what we do should be based on who we want to be. My working definition of happiness is that of peace. Peace is the absence of the feeling that something is missing in your life. Peace eludes those who desire, because that desire takes them out of present reality. Desire is wanting reality to be different from what it is. When what you want is different from what is, you are unhappy. The desire to tell a great story should therefore make us unhappy. Why live your life according to a piece of wisdom that will only bring you unhappiness? This contradiction is tough to reconcile. It seems ill-advised to base your life choices on a story you'll someday be able to tell.
Perhaps the act of fighting desire to attain happiness, is in and of itself a path to discontentment. Perhaps the desire to create and accomplish great things is something we are all born with. Perhaps it just our nature. Perhaps, in order to find peace, we cannot reject the reality of Nature, nor can we reject the reality of our human nature. Perhaps it is in our nature to care about the story of our lives. The story of our choices.