Working as a teacher at a summer camp in Spain, there was much time for conversation and contemplation. After class, on one of these slow and sweltering afternoons, one of my students pulled me aside. ‘Jake, I need to ask you a question’.

Before I could reply, he had launched into his inquiry. ‘What should be my goal in life?’ Without allowing me much time to think of a thoughtful reply, he began describing his parents’ expectations. Both high achievers in finance, it was apparent they’d instilled in him similar aspirations. His father described him as an investment that he was awaiting a return on. His mother spoke of her aspirations for him as a man.

He was clearly grappling with the weight of these expectations. Trying to disentangle his parents’ hopes from his own dreams and desires. Trying to discern whether the next step was something he could make his own.

In some ways, I was quite taken aback by this 14-year-old’s existential questions. But I think it reflects a core human desire: to create and live our very own life story.

Now, having had some time to reflect. If that student had asked again, or at least given me a moment to think, I’d encourage him to recognise that this search for meaning is universal, and that both the path and destination remain entirely in his own hands. As we search for ways to understand our own existence, we ought to remember that the narratives we ascribe to our past, present and future are our own constructions.

The search for meaning is a fundamental human drive. This was the core point made in Viktor Frankl’s 1946 memoir, where he explained that even through the hopelessness and moral depravity of the Holocaust, he continued searching for meaning.

More broadly, as humans, we derive meaning and make sense of uncertainty through storytelling, creating narratives that explain how our past, present and future fit together to create our stories of self. Dan McAdams’s life narration theory seeks to provide a framework to explain how we narrate our lives.

Three principal tenets comprise this narration: a reconstructed past, a perceived present, and an imagined future. He contends that all three time frames exist in our minds, and are imagined simultaneously in relation to each other.

Indeed, we understand and explain our present, through our interpretations of the past and imaginings of the future.

We either internalise our failure, and this becomes part of our self-perception. Say we fail an exam and start to tell ourselves we are not good enough; we stop trying. Alternatively, and perhaps hopefully, we turn negative experiences into something from which we can draw meaning and growth. The important lesson here is that we are in charge. Whilst the narratives we draw are internalised and begin to feel like truths, we have choice over our interpretations.

Similarly, and in reference to my student in question, our narratives about our future are our own constructions. Whilst we may feel pressure from our parents or other external figures, we can craft our own narratives. He may, for example choose to work hard and ensure his father gets that return on his investment. He may also create his own narrative, noticing what gives him energy and imagining his own hopes for the future.

What’s important to recognise here is that, whilst the narratives we tell ourselves about our lives tend to feel engrained, they are all constructed and changeable. The future does not materially exist, nor is it guaranteed. Similarly, the past is only really an imagination of past experiences, contexts and relationships that we take together to feed into our narrative identity. As such, when we remember that we are the ones writing the story, we can then begin to consciously shape it.

My student had presented me with his constructed past, his perception of the present, and, based on these, sought to imagine the future.

Narration theory tells us that all three of these time frames are imagined, and that this imagination occurs simultaneously. Our perception of the present is contingent on how we choose to construct the past. Similarly, how we perceive the present shifts how we can imagine the future.

These narratives are important – they shape how we feel and ultimately how we go on to experience life. Whilst they become in many cases engrained, internalised to shape how we feel and who we see ourselves as, they are something we have control over. Our brains are wired to draw meaning from the past, but what meaning that is, is entirely at our own will.

When we realise that the story that we choose to tell ourselves about our life: past, present and future is at our own discretion, and that when we remember that we are the authors, we can feel empowered to pick up the pen.