Harley King - Heroes and Stories

Are you the hero of your story? Or are you the victim? We all have faced challenges in our lives and we have struggled to overcome difficulties. We have people who seek to hurt us and cause us harm. Have you found the strength to share your story of triumph and victory over the pain? Or are you still dwelling in a past of unhappiness? Maybe it is time to retell your story with you as the hero. Maybe it is time to celebrate your healing.

Our stories are not new.  Others have tread the same path and faced the same challenges.  The difference is in the details. The difference is in our memories. Share your memories and the details that make your story unique. Share what is special about your story.

The fact that I have been fired five times in my career is a part of my story. Yet, I have risen from the ashes of failure to find new paths. I have used my failures as opportunities to grow and change. I have overcome the pain of loss. I have become the hero, not the victim.  I have been employed by the same company for the last 28 years.

The fact that I was diagnosed with prostate cancer is a part of my story.  Yet, today, ten years later, I am cancer-free.

The fact that editors have rejected my poems is a part of my story.  Yet, I did not let the rejection stop me from writing.  I chose to keep writing and have now written over 5,000 poems.  And I still write and rewrite my story.  I celebrate my story. 

What stories are you telling? Are you the hero?  Or the victim? Is it time to rewrite your story?

This entry marks the 950th post to this inspirational blog filled with positive quotes and comments. I have written every week for six years, beginning with my first entry on August 7, 2010.  The first two years I posted a daily entry. During the last four years I have posted weekly. I am writing and rewriting my story.

First blog post: August 7, 2010
http://harleyinspiration.blogspot.com/2010/08/every-flower-is-soul-blossoming-in.html

Leonardo da Vinci

Self-Portrait
in red chalk
(1512)

"Art is never finished, only abandoned."

— Leonardo da Vinci

Italian Artist

1452 - 1519

Do you have paintings laying around that you have not finished?  Or stories that you can't seem to finish?  I have one such story.  No matter how many times I have rewritten it, I am never satisfied with the ending.  I put it away and and come back to it again and again.  I have a long eighty page poem about the life of my mother that I have never finished.  

Unfinished painting of
St. Jerome in the Wilderness
(1480)

But I think da Vinci is driving at something even deeper.  No art is ever finished.  Sure we may sell a painting or publish a novel, but if we could we would go back and change it.  And some artists do.  I have read of writers making changes even as the novel is going to the printer.  

And sometimes a writer spends a lifetime rewriting the same story.  He may publish 10 novels, but each is a variation of the others.  And artists may paint the same subject over and over.  Each time trying to perfect what they missed before.  Are there certain themes that reappear in your writing and your paintings?  Are there certain personal issues that you are working out in your art?