My Life Directed by Social Norms

In Alasdair MacIntyre’s “Virtue, the Unity of a Human Life, and the Concept of a Tradition” from After Virtue, he begins to talk about life as if it's a story or movie being told. The concept of my life being a movie gives me an eerie feeling. Sometimes it does feel like I’m not in complete control and that I'm being instructed on the next scenes to come and the dialogue to go by. The scenes and dialogue are written according to the current social norms. MacIntyre argues that “Only in fantasy do we live what story we please (304).” A simple example of how true I believe this comment to be is perfectly explained when sitting in class. One’s mind begins to wonder and shortly after you are sitting at the beach hanging out with your best friends no longer engaged in the place you most dread being at 8 am on a Monday, school. I also believe that it is true that there are certain variables in life that we cannot control. It's when the uncontrollable variables begin to stack up and overpile you that it feels like you are just running in circles. In that moment, life feels out of our hands. It makes me think… is life meant to be uncontrollable or have I lost in that moment myself and my ability to fight for my fantasies? Yet if it is just a fight for what you truly desire, the only thing standing in my way is my own will to fight and the impact society has on my life. I believe societal norms are what write the play that is our lives, and sometimes we forget that we are not bound by these, but should rather use them as guidelines.