We're all our own kind of masterpiece

Imagine someone taking their whole life's work and at last minute deciding to take that whole piece and try to transform it into something completely different. Something that has been so defined, that anyone knew exactly what it was just by looking at it, and then deciding "I think I want to change and try something new".

You're a writer, you have spent months and months coming up with the perfect story line for your characters, what they're like, where they live, how they grew up, their dreams, their ambitions, what their life long goals are, and so on. Then, right before you decide to send it off to the editor, the night before, you throw the whole story line in the garbage and attempt to start from scratch, this time attempting to spice it up a little. You create characters who have no moral background, no standards, no ambitions, nothing really going for them except fun and cheap thrills. You want them to be the kind of characters who go to parties and do drugs and just live the worldly dream. By the end of the night, you have this rough draft of what you think is the perfect story line. However, when you read back through it, there is no story line at all, no plot, nothing. In the end, you've thrown away what really mattered most to you and have replaced it with something meaningless.
In life, you have a choice to write your own story line. You can either be the author who wants a good story, with a good moral ending that makes people happy to have read it, or you can be the author that just writes for entertainment, not really intending for the reader to really get anything out of it except a few laughs.

I want to be able to look back at my life and say "I've done good, I am satisfied with what I have accomplished." For so long I have pushed aside my first draft and tried writing and re-writing my story line, only to realize that nothing will suffice until I have written something worth saving, something I'm proud of. When I write my story, I want to be able to get something out of it, not just a thought of "yep, that was a fun ride..."

So, tonight as I'm typing up this lovely blog, I am making a promise to myself: No more pointless rough drafts and waste-of-time story boards. I have spent my whole life trying to make sense of things, only to find out that when I went searching for my heart and the truth, it was right there in the original story line along.

You only live once, now it's your turn to flip the page, and be the artist of your own masterpiece.