I talked last week about how suffering is optional, and voluntary. Today, I’d like to look more closely at something that can often lead to suffering. That is, prewriting a script for your life, and all of the characters in it.

When speaking, I often think, some might say I overthink about what I am going to say next, and how I’m going to phrase it, and often find myself desiring to hear certain things in response. This, however, is often unsatisfying, unfruitful, and quite unhealthy. It is not fair to expect others to read your mind, and if they respond in a manner unfitting of their assigned script, it’s unfair to blame them.

Alright, *deep breath* let’s explore a personal example. So, I recently found myself in a lot of pain (emotional, not physical, no need to send flowers, though chocolates never hurt), and suffering. I thus reluctantly sought the support of my friends. Reluctantly, because I really wasn’t sure how they could help me. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be alone, and I wasn’t going to further alienate myself from them by keeping everything in this time.

But, I actually didn't want their support. I didn’t want their words. I didn’t want their opinions. I just wanted them to follow the script of our conversation that I had already written; to act the scene as I had already thought up. But, that's an impossible expectation. How could they? That was a rhetorical question, they couldn’t. I, nevertheless, wanted them to, and when they responded with their own thoughts, words, and opinions, it struck me unexpectedly, and I suffered.

No one seemed to understand. No one could understand. My suffering was unique after all. They didn’t follow my vision of what was to happen, and what was to be said in the course of our conversation. That could only mean that I was alone, right? They were somewhere else, in someone else’s life-play, following someone else’s script, and there I was, in my own script, all alone.

There I was, wallowing in self-pity. Suffering yet again.

This, however, needn’t have been so. Had I put aside the idea of what I wanted to happen; what I wanted them to say, how I wanted them to respond, I might have realized that though they may not understand my every thought and feeling, they really cared. They were and are there for me, and that reality is proof enough that I am not alone. It’s okay if they don’t get it; if we're not on the same page, we still have one another. I ought to have asked for a hug, because in that I might have felt the warmth and support their words failed to express.

You, Reader, are not alone, just as I am not alone. We simply have to listen to the love within words that may not be exactly what we want to hear; that may not be in the scene we envisioned; that may not be in the script we wrote.

Allow me to twist the words of William Shakespeare ever so slightly in saying, all the world may be a stage, but we men and women are not merely players in the plays of each others lives. We are the stars of our own, and interact with stars of other plays of other lives.

So, go, take the stage, and commence the play of your life. Interact with other players of other plays. Just, refrain from suffering when their lines and actions depart from your script. They’re only following their own, as you are yours. Break a leg!