VFX artists spend so much of our lives enforcing continuity that we begin to assume our own lives must obey the same rules. We track shapes across frames and match shadows across cuts, and polish transitions until no one can see where one moment ends and the next begins. Eventually, we start believing our identity must function the same way: coherent, consistent, seamless.

But your life is not a single timeline. It is not a pristine edit that must justify every choice by referencing earlier scenes. You are not a novel with one plot. You are a library of short films, each with its own lighting, its own emotional LUT, and its own truth.

Somewhere along the way, we start tying who we once were to who we are allowed to become. We assume the previous version of ourselves is still running the pipeline, still calling the shots, still limiting the grade. We forget that artists evolve, and that our past selves do not have editorial control over our future.

I have noticed three patterns that show up in almost every compositor I have taught, and in myself. First, we create problems where none exist, as though meaning can only come from struggle. If life is calm, we brace for impact. Many of us were conditioned early by parents, teachers and our own assumptions to believe that happiness must be justified. We internalize those voices and spend years fixing things that were never broken.

Second, we mistrust good things. When something feels aligned and frictionless, we assume it must be a trap. Artists who learned to survive chaos often do not know how to live with ease, so we dismantle it before it can disappoint us.

Third, we narrate our choices as if we are already recording the behind-the-scenes commentary of our lives. Before deciding, we imagine how it will sound to others. We choose paths that read well instead of ones that are true. But those imagined synopses were written for characters we no longer are.

You cannot map your future by tracing lines from a past that no longer represents you. You cannot demand that every chapter transitions smoothly into the next. It is enough that your coexisting truths are real.

When we avoid opportunities because our old selves would not have believed we deserved them, we cap our happiness. Life is not a nostalgic flashback. It is vivid, unpredictable, and constantly re-rendering. Most of us never notice how many present decisions are shaped by beliefs we never updated, beliefs about worth, capability, and permission.

What you think of yourself determines what you allow. What you allow becomes your life. But your life does not need to be one continuous story. It can be an anthology of moments, some messy, some sharp, some breathtaking, none of which owe each other anything.

The way forward is for the inner narrator to release its grip on the old chapters to write something new.

You are not trapped inside one story. You are the author of many.