Like it or not we come to life in the middle of stories that are not ours. The way to knowledge and to self-knowledge is through pilgrimage. We imitate our way to the truth, finding our lives, saving them in the process.
Paul Ely The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand
or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I
can wait.
Walt Whitman from Song of Myself