You are in line at the bank and when finally your turn comes to get served, you find that the bank teller does not greet you with a smile, does not answer your question properly and you generally find their attitude very rude. You decide that that person is just a rude person and then carry on with your day.
While on the way home you pass a person, your eyes lock and they smile, you smile back. Momentarily you feel joy, maybe you think of that person as being nice, or you feel better about yourself thinking, “I must be looking good today” and then you simply let the thought fade away as quickly and quietly as it arrived and continue on your journey home.
You are living in the story of your life experiencing events unfolding one moment at a time. Your path crosses with the paths of others. They make your life’s experience richer, give you love, joy, annoy you and sometimes even hurt you. You are experiencing intimately and with full attentiveness the story of your life. You live a complex, multidimensional life with emotions, situations, relationships with the people close to you and the relationship with your self. Every situation that you are in is unique, and sometimes people don’t understand you and sometimes they do. No matter what happens how it happens, only you will fully experience and understand the complexity of your life and everyone that you have ever met, heard, saw, or experienced their existence in any form or manner is merely an extra in the story of your life,… and so am I.
We all experience life in this way. In our experience we are at the centre of our Universe and everyone else is a distance star, a tiny specific woven into the fabric of our life. Other people that come into our life momentarily or for a longer duration from our telescopic perception live single dimensional and predictable lives, they have general personality traits – this person is a nice person, this one is mean or rude, this one is a complete @$$ hole etc.. These extras in the story of your life serve a person, mostly a single purpose, and sometimes more than that, but they occupy a very tiny portion of your life.
But in fact these extras don’t live such simple lives. They live a rich complex life filled with emotions, ambitions, disappointments, love, hate, regrets, situations that make them grow, or constraint them. They do good things, they do bad things, sometimes they do things they can’t explain, and sometimes they do things that they can and do explain.
Every person that crosses your path may be an extra in your life, but know that you are also merely an extra in theirs.