It amazes me how many stories we walk past each and every day without realizing it. The young man in the suit waiting ahead of us in the Starbucks line. The mother of two getting in the car next to us. The old lady you almost bump into while navigating the mall. All of these people are extras in our own lives -- expendable, seemingly insignificant. Nothing more but blurs of traffic in the background. In your life, you are obviously the star of the show. But these “extras,” these people have their own shows, their own lives, where they are front and center. Where their story is the one being told. Where you act as nothing but a passerby in Day 11,680.
There is a word for this realization that each random passerby is living their own life that is as vivid and complex as your own. Sonder. Each stranger is motivated by different passions, aided by different vices, and loved by different people. They are stuck in their own routines, distracted by their own Netflix accounts, and capable of who knows what. They are each building their own epic story, carried out by various veins of social networks, interweaved into thousands of other lives you’ll never even realize existed.
I once saw a photo of a homeless man. A stranger had taken the time to photograph the man, interview him, then post it on the internet for the thousands of lives he’ll never be able to conceptualize into existence to read. The homeless man was prompted with a simple question: What was the happiest moment of your life? The man responded that the single happiest moment of his life was when his daughter was born. The stranger then pushed the man’s story further, asking him where the daughter was. As it turns out, the man’s daughter had been raped and murdered alongside the man’s wife. The man was not present for the pillaging, as he had been at work. He was a paramedic. The man was home in time to be the first to arrive at the scene, though. While the police fortunately caught the guy responsible for turning out the light in this man’s life, this justice wasn’t enough peace of mind for the man. The former paramedic suffered a mental breakdown, thus losing his ability to serve at his job. It was then that the man spiraled out of control, ending up on the streets, only to be interviewed by a stranger.
Stories like this we pass every day. Sure, the young man in the suit ahead of us in the Starbucks line might not have suffered something so traumatic. He more than likely did not arrive home one day to the horrific murder scene of the two people he loved most in this world. But he does have his own story, his own version of tragedy, his own version of a silver-lining, his own version of triumph. Just like I do. Just like you do. We just don’t realize because more often than not, we’re stuck in our own world, our own bubble, our own story where we are the stars.
But what if we took the time to step out of own world every once in a while?
What if we took the time to appreciate acting as the extra in someone else’s story?
What if we took the time to step up and create a larger role for ourselves in that story, claim a cameo, a speaking role of sorts?
What if we ended up with a much larger role because of it?
