Hey Uncle Tuck, here, your uncle’s favorite uncle.

And welcome to Life According to Uncle Tuck.

Every day is a new story. And with that, we tend to believe that the universe revolves around us throughout our lives. We would continue to live as if everything is connected to us in some manner, attempting to make the most of our life in the process of obtaining something.

We live in the shape of stories that we want to tell the people we care about. All our travels and tribulations typically add up to an incredible story to tell future generations. Adventures in which we are the heroes, overcoming all odds to make our stories matter.

I’d always had this wild notion about myself. In my kind of journey, I believe I am a good guy. I couldn’t possibly be a horrible character in my own story since I’m me, right?

I’m the protagonist/actor in my story. Everyone else comes and goes, some engage with me, and some even play a part in my life journey.

They’re just there for a few blinks of an eye. I do not think I’ll ever see them again.

Others will be around to converse with me and to assist me in some way. They provide filler roles and assist with plot development, allowing tensions to rise or fall. They are the supporting characters who do everything they can to make my adventure a success. This group includes the bartender at my local watering hole, neighbors, and even a homeless person I gave change to on the street.

Then there are the primary characters, who play minor or larger parts in various sub-stories of my life. Sometimes these storylines are linked, requiring the same person to play many roles, and in other circumstances, the person is immersed in a separate, smaller story. I’d list here all of the people who are close to me and with whom I have a relationship, such as coworkers, friends, relatives, and significant others.

Finally, in my personal story, I have a small but sufficient number of villains. Devious characters attempting to tarnish my gleaming skin. I would only put a few people in this class, and I could even list them by name. They are my arch-nemesis and symbolize the polar opposite of me.

As individuals live on, everyone is immersed in their own story, and the world appears to revolve around them. We are all living on the same planet, and while we may be physically close, our perceptions of the world are vastly different.

I must address or prevent the evildoers from damaging my inner circle. And each sub-story ends or begins with the ascension or fall of the villain.

Understandably, I imagine myself to be existing in a personal adventure and tale. Most people, I assume, do. To make sense of the daily pandemonium, we must all create the correct story in our thoughts.

However, viewing myself as the solitary brave warrior can lead to misconceptions about who the bad guy is in my stories.

In addition, everyone admires the brave warrior.

Let alone the fact that everyone believes their interests and values are correct.

And knowing that means that even my villains are the good guys in their own stories. And perhaps I’m the villain in theirs.

Worse, I could unintentionally become the bad guy in someone else’s adventure.

Because there are no good guys and bad ones at the end of the day.

And confrontations that are either deliberate or unnecessarily created.

So perhaps I should try to dismount my high horse.

It’s not as though the entire world revolves around me. I don’t have to justify my behavior as divine or heroic all of the time.

We should never pass judgment on another person’s story based on our own experiences. We don’t see the big picture most of the time because we’re blind to it. People may be going through things that are consuming all of their mental, physical, and emotional energy, which could be misconstrued as narcissism. We’re all fighting our own battles, trying everything we can to bring our story to a magnificent conclusion. Let’s all live and let live, rather than becoming the villains in someone else’s tale.

After all, we are all villains in someone’s story.