My outlook is very similar to yours, white.

I see my life as a story. I have a goal to have an interesting story, and when I make decisions it helps me to think of what will make for the best story possible.

It also helps when facing difficulties. In the best stories, the hero faces terrible difficulties and these are most often preludes to something to come that is even better than before.

I wonder sometimes if our lives are a static sculpture in multidimensional space, and what gives action and consciousness in life is a higher dimensional "being" running a spark of experience along our story line, like someone watching a video if you will, and it is this that creates the illusion of time and experience. If that's the case, and there are countless lives in which to experience, then why did this being choose my life to follow? It must be that my story is a good one, and terrible tragedies will be followed by magnificent triumphs. It's a silly thought I know, but I find it comforting nonetheless.

I don't know if there is a difference between those understand their lives as stories and those who don't, but I think that thinking about life as a story makes for a better life.