Life is a book written by someone else

You know, when I read a book- and not even only the first time- I often wonder how characters can act so stupidly. As a writer myself, I know perfectly well that it is, in fact, the characters' own faults and not the author because I've been in that position, of desperately trying to keep up with what they're doing. We have much less actual influence over their lives than others might believe.

But anyway, sometimes my ire in the face of the stupidity of characters who seem otherwise intelligent is stronger on the second or third reading because by that point, I know that they're going to make stupid choices and I can't do anything to stop them.

It's like Rumple said in OUaT: "When you see the future, there's irony everywhere."

But it made me think about something; this is what life is like. We act- and react- to what we know. And sometimes our choices as a result are good. And sometimes our choices are bad. And sometimes our choices- if we even survive them at all- make us wonder how we could have possibly been so embarrassingly stupid in the first place.

Hindsight is, as they say, the only vision that is 20/20.

We are, in a very literal sense, these characters that sometimes make me want to chuck my book across a room.

It's a lovely sentiment to say that "I am the author of my own life story", but the truth is, I'm not. And neither are you.

God is the Author of every story.

I'm just a character. And probably the kind that makes the reader want to chuck the book across the room.