Discovering the Journey

Maya Angelou tells the story of how she refused to speak when she was a little girl. She had been raped, and a few days after she told what happened to her and who did it, the body of her assailant was found in a nearby field. From her perspective as a child, she believed her voice held the power of life and death, so she quit talking to make sure she didn’t hurt anyone else.

One morning, her grandmother told her, “Girl, you aren’t fooling me. A lot of people think you’re stupid and you can’t talk, but I know better. You’re smart, and someday you are going to be a great teacher.”

Maya thought to herself, “You don’t even know who you’re talking to. I don’t even speak! How am I ever going to be a great teacher?”

She goes on to explain, “You see, I thought that the person I was at that moment was the person I would always be, but the story of my life hadn’t been written yet, and I was just living in one chapter of that story.”

“The story of your life has not been written yet,” she continues. “Whatever you are experiencing, whoever you feel you are; these things will not always be. No matter how young or old you are, you are just living in the present chapter of your life – but the story of your life has not been written yet. Every day, you are writing a new chapter. Just keep moving forward, and you might be amazed at how that story ends.”

Sometimes I teach composition classes, and the first question my students ask when I give an assignment is, “How long does it have to be?” I always tell them, “As long as it needs to be to say what you want to say,” and then I explain that they are focusing on the wrong thing when they are worrying about the final product when they haven’t even began to write the paper.

I’m beginning to realize that I do the same thing. “The story of your life has not been written yet” has taken on a new meaning for me. Too often, I have been so caught up in trying to decide how my story is going to end that I don’t take the time to discover what it is about. I try to rush headlong into my future without stopping to experience the present.

Each day is a new chapter – a new adventure to be experienced, and a new lesson to be learned. I don’t know where my path may lead, and I won’t know until I open my eyes to where I am.