Stories, Choices and the Randomness of Life

Have you ever thought about the fact that we are all writing a story with our lives?

Well, in the real sense of it we can say we are living our lives and trying to make sense of it by piecing all the different parts to make a story. But is it really a story if, as Steve Jobs said, the dots only connect when looking back?

In the past week, I have been thinking a bit more about life stories. At the beginning of the week, a friend started a new job at a company he has always wanted to work at. And even though he tries to downplay it, it is a story of resilience and consistency and it was actually inspiring to me. In retrospect, it seems everything added up and all the sacrifices paid off. But it’s also possible that the story could have progressed differently.

Later in the same week, news broke about a chef in Abuja who was murdered in his home. As I read more about the news, I saw a Twitter thread that one of the Chef’s friends made about 2 years ago. In the thread, the Chef had gone through a couple of rough times, from his house being burnt to being held unjustly by the Nigerian Police. At the time of the thread, the Chef was getting back on his feet and things were looking up. And then he was murdered. Reading through the thread had me in my feelings because one would have expected things to keep getting better and for a better end to his story.

All of this got me thinking that maybe the things that happen to us are unrelated in themselves, but because as humans we need explanations for events so we ascribe B happening to the fact that we did A years back. This is not to say that actions/choices don’t have consequences, just that sometimes we can’t accurately predict the outcomes of our lives. All we can really do is act now, and do what we think is best given all available facts. It’s all we can control in the randomness that exists on this side of life.

Hoping for a vastly productive week,

Sisikunmi.