You’re the side character in your own story

Last week, I was at a cafe and I overheard this couple who seemed to be on a first date.

It was a small, dimly-lit cafe where most of your conversations could be heard by others anyway. 

Now of course, a few lines of introductions later, the guy asked the girl, “So what songs do you listen to?”

This girl mentioned some artist to which the boy goes, ‘Me too. Wow!’

By the way, one thing I hated the most about this entire conversation was the “Wow” that this boy used to say after every 5 seconds. It was like,

- Hey, I drink water

- “Wow”

EVERY FIVE SECONDS.

Anyway, the conversation goes on and the boy can’t stop talking about this artist.

I promise, this person knew every little detail about this artist. When he was born, what albums he made, how many songs. He kept yapping.

All the time, this boy went from artist to artist, song to song, talking about their accomplishments, how many awards they have won, and everything - all followed with a WOW!

“Do you know they also collaborated with these guys and blah blah blah… wow!”

Now the entire time, the girl didn’t say a thing. She was listening quietly for well over 6 to 7 minutes.

I couldn’t see them properly. The girl’s back was turned to me. But I could sense that this girl had been giving him the hints to shut up.

And the inevitable happened. The girl pushed her chair back, stood up, picked up her coat, and interrupted him, asking, “Is this all you ever talk about?”

He goes, “What do you mean?”

The girl says, “All this time, you’ve been talking about these singers or whatever non-stop. You don’t let others speak, and I don’t really care about any of this. I just asked you about what you do and who you are, that’s it!”

She picked up her bag and left. And the guy went after her.

Whatever happened next, who cares? He probably would have said WOW at that too.

But here’s the thing…

///

What this guy did is what you do too. 

He didn’t have anything interesting about himself to say, which is why he had to resort to talking about others, their accomplishments, and what they have done in their lives.

You don’t get to live in a movie. 

You’re not even the main character in your own movie, in your own story, in your own life.

All you have to talk about is others, what they have done, and how you were ‘rooting for their success from day one’.

Do you know why you were rooting for their success? Because you very well know that you don’t have the potential to do anything significant yourself, so you were invested in somebody else’s story.

How could anybody ever be interested in you?

And this is something that I see in everybody these days. 

Everybody talks about others and shares others’ stories.

What about you?

Don’t you have anything remarkable to share about yourself?

Haven’t you done anything significant that other people should listen to?

Aren’t your stories worth sharing?

Looks like not.

Looks like all you do is browse the internet and expect things to get better in life without taking any action.

Looks like you’re just like this guy at the cafe!

Wow!