In which I discover that everyone has a leading role; no one has a supporting role. Or rather, we’re all in both roles all the time.

Years ago, the Big Man and I fixed up a very close friend with another friend. They fell in love, it was great. But within a few years, he got sick. She stood by him through it all. Then he died. It was awful. And it was very, very hard on our friend.

It was a sad situation for many reasons. As the years passed, one thing continued to bother me: I felt we had put a beloved friend in the path to sorrow. It had been inadvertent, and well-intentioned, but still, we had brought all this pain into our good friend’s life.

I mentioned this to the Big Man last night. And he said something that completely changed my thinking. He said, “Yes, it was very hard on her. But think how much better it was for him.”

This thought, obvious as it is, had never occurred to me. I realized – how often I make this error. I was acting as though my friend were the main character of this story! That she was the one who really mattered. And I saw that I make this mistake all the time. I’m the MOST main character of course, and then the people close to me, and so on…with some people just appearing as extras or in walk-on roles.

But that’s not true. Everyone is a main character. And everyone is a minor character. And as I started thinking about this, I realized that many of my favorite happiness passages concerned exactly this shift: someone re-interpreting a situation, by understanding how different circumstance would seem if someone else were placed in the starring role.

I just can’t resist including them. Each has haunted me, but only now do I see what theme links them together.

*
Reading Flanner O’Connor’s letters led me to the book, A Memoir of Mary Ann, a memoir about a little girl, Mary Ann, who lived with a gruesome tumor on her face before dying of cancer, written by the nuns with whom she lived for several years in a free cancer-treatment home.

Near the end of Mary Ann’s life, a five-month-old baby, Stephanie, was brought to the cancer home. Stephanie’s parents were crushed at the thought of leaving their baby there.

The nuns relate that for years, Mary Ann had longed for a baby to take care of. When Stephanie arrived, she said shyly to the baby’s mother, “I didn’t pray for a baby to be sick, but I prayed that if a baby was sick, it would come here.”

Later, the mother wrote the nuns, “I had accepted the hurt [my child’s affliction] brought me, but I had not accepted the fact that I had to give her up. My husband was suffering too and my attitude…was not helping much. Mary Ann’s words opened my understanding. Stephanie was needed…this child with the bandaged face and a heart full of love needed her…God had given me a good husband, six beautiful children. This last child was probably the most special of them all, destined for something I knew nothing about.”

*
In Viktor Frankl’s masterpiece, Man’s Search for Meaning, he relates a story from his psychiatric practice, when an elderly man, distraught with grief over the death of his wife two years before, came to him.

Frankl asked, “What would have happened…if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?”

The man answered, “Oh, for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!”

Frankl responded, “You see…such a suffering has been spared to her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering—to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.”

The man left the office, comforted. Frankl observed, “In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

*
Here’s an example from children’s literature. In Rick Riordan’s novel, The Sea of Monsters, the hero of the story, thirteen-year-old Percy Jackson (who happens to be the son of the sea god Poseidon and a mortal woman), has taken Tyson, a huge, awkward boy who seems to be learning disabled, with a misshapen face, under his wing. They go to high school together, but Percy isn’t exactly sure why he’s bothering to protect Tyson and drag him along on his Olympian adventures.

He keeps Tyson with him, though, and at the end of the book, Percy learns that Tyson is also a son of Poseidon, and he’s a Cyclops, which is why his face looks wrong.

Tyson says to Percy, “Poseidon did take care for me after all…I prayed to Daddy for help…He sent me a brother.”

Ah! we see. Percy thought that Tyson was tagging along with him, but in fact, he was a supporting character in Tyson's adventure.

*
It’s a very unsettling and interesting exercise to think about the people in my life and to imagine myself in a minor, supporting role. How do I fit into their fates? Am I helping?

*
I love reading Dooce. I admire her writing tremendously. It's not easy both to be funny about life with your forty-six-month-old and your husband and family. Not to mention, working blue.

*
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Comments

[Matt Langdon]

One of the things I talk about in my Hero Workshop is the core concept that you are the hero of your own journey. I follow that up with explaining that if everyone is on their own journey, then you are a part of the journeys of the people around you. Therefore you have an opportunity (to a certain degree) to choose the part you play in their stories. Are you going to play the part of a loyal friend, an enemy, a mentor, or will you be a bit part?

I loved your examples and will definitely try to use examples in my workshops to bring the point home.

[stephanerd]

There's another side to this as well. When you've felt angered, irritated, or hurt by another person, it helps to try and consider what they may be going through behind the scenes. Could be you're just collateral damage in a tragic scene of the movie of their life.

[Marc]

Easily the best posting in my several months of faithful reading. Too often I get put out with people because they're not playing the proper supporting role in the movie in which I'm a star, my life. Then I realize they're playing the leading role in their own particular movie. "It's not about me" lets everyone off the hook.

Well written post, thanks.

[Louise]

This is one of the most powerful things I have read in a long time. Thank you.

[Travelinoma]

Just tonight I was thinking of someone who criticized me recently. It was all about me, and I wondered how this person could perceive me so unjustly. I began to judge. Your post has reminded me that there is a lot in other people's stories that I never read, because I'm busy writing my own. Maybe my recent incident was more about her than it was about me, and I totally misread it. Thanks for pointing me in another direction.

[Genevieve]

"There's another side to this as well. When you've felt angered, irritated, or hurt by another person, it helps to try and consider what they may be going through behind the scenes"

I learned that the slightly hard way yesterday! I made the effort to go to coffee with a woman that I thought probably didn't like me very much, based on our first meeting, and some of the tone of subsequent emails. Turns out that I wasn't the only one not feeling so well when we first met, and she had several things going on beyond the "Well, she's got work and school" that I thought she had going on to affect her attitude, and we had a fantastic time.

[Carol]

Being 65 years of age, I have walked the walk and talked the talk about accepting where I am in this life and being happy with who I am. If I want to dwell in self pitty, I can. However, I choose to learn something new each and every day and continue to do the best that I can. I can't make people like me so I figure that it is their loss.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog and the insight that you provide. My son in Anchorage, Alaska sent me your web site and I intend to make it a daily visit. Thank you so much.

[melissa]

I was thinking a great movie example is "Love Actually" which is kind of hokey and sappy and certainly christmasy but it depicts this notion of stars v. leading characters to a tee. As the story progresses you see the main roles and supporting roles unfold and intertwine and at some points become dependent on one another.

[Laura]

This is a fantastic post... Just started reading your blog and I have to say, this is powerful stuff. You do great work here... Congrats and keep it up

[MJ]

Try fussy.org or whatsthefuss.com (same site) too, Mrs. Kennedy is also a terrific writer about her family life, her wilder past life, her enduring arts interest, and in the last year, some very poignant posts about being an adult with suddenly dead or ill parents and all of the family issues that come from the adult siblings pulling together. Not downer posts at all, just very sweet and honest, and always funny when she can be.

Blue at times as well.

I've already realized that I'm the hero of my own journey. However, until circumstances change, I'm one of those tired, worn down heros who really wants to put down her sword and walk away for a while or turn the battles over to someone else, but for various reasons can't yet. Maybe after I slay a few more monsters I can go farm in peace. This perspective helps, believe it or not.

[ReddyK - The Atma Jyoti Blog]

In reading tales of the sorrows that people go through such as the above, I am reminded why the wise look beyond this world for their happiness.

One of the prime lessons this world has to offer is that there is nothing stable and unchanging in this world, and to place our abiding hope for fulfillment and happiness in this world is end up disappointed at the very least.

A saying attributed to Jesus in one of the apocryphal texts is this: "The world is a bridge, pass over it, do not build a house on it."

This world's purpose is that of a great school; the sooner we learn our lessons, the sooner we graduate.

Thanks for your interesting posts.

[Gretchen Rubin]

I'm so gratified that the post resonated with other people. Thanks for the responses. They really carried the thought further.

[Honey B]

Great post! Also remember that your friend, the woman, got the chance to love someone. Personally (and I know this sounds cliche, but it's true for me), I'd rather love someone and lose them than never have the chance to love.

Besides, as the Buddhists know, pain is part of life and not to be avoided. You did the right thing in introducing your friends, despite (and because of) what happened in the end.

I think true wisdom starts when we realize everything's not about us - everyone is a star in their own life and not alive merely to make us happy.

[Suze]

Excellent, excellent post.

[Carol]

I can not thank you enough for todays "Happiness". I too, suffer daily with the grief of loss. I have known all along that I was spared because I was the one who would be needed. Thank you again.

[Whitney Johnson]

Matt Langdon over at The Hero's Journey flagged your post for me.

Late last year I auditioned for a play, hoping for a leading role, and didn't get one.

It was only after I stuck with the play, my small role notwithstanding, that I came to wonder -- if all of us always want leading roles, then who will play the supporting roles?

With the likes of YouTube, society is increasingly catering to our need to be front and center. Yet if we allow ourselves to live in a YouTube world where everyone is the lead which, in the case of the play I was in, were the biblical Joseph and Mary, who plays the shepherds? The angels? The musical instruments? The audience?

So, yes, we need to be the hero of our story. But sometimes we need to be the hero of support, the Sam Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings. Or an angel in the choir. Or a member of the audience. Or maybe even Joseph.

Thanks for your post -- I've put you in my google reader.

Whitney Johnson
www.daretodream.typepad.com

[Marie Lopez]

Wonderful post in a long time. hope you can keep up.Thanks for todays inspiration.

[Liz]

Whenever I'm haunted by something I've done or said that's stupid/humiliating, I try to remember that I'm most likely the only one who cares. Whoever witnessed my shame probably continued their day without giving me a second thought.