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Key points
- We all live in a world of stories—from our parents, our childhoods, our times of struggle—that define us.
- These stories provide options and morals, but often they are distorted and held on to for too long.
- Maybe it's time to step back and look at what stories no longer fit who we are today.
When I was growing up, my parents liked to tell a story about how they got married. It’s a Romeo and Juliet story where both their parents were against them marrying so young. So at 18, they took a bus to South Carolina, where it was legal to marry at 18, got married by a local justice of the peace, and returned back to New York on the bus with a matrimonial meal of splitting a hot dog. When I was 20, I did the same, eloping not to South Carolina but Michigan, where they didn’t require you to be 21 to marry without parental permission.
Our lives are filled with stories that shape how we view life, our past, and how we imagine our future. The ones that I think have the most impact are the stories we hear from our parents, our own stories about our childhoods, and the stories we create from times of transition and struggle. Here’s the impact of each type:
Parent stories
I think I eloped like my parents because they gave me that option. This is one of the things that parents’ stories offer—stories of divorce or affairs, quitting or not quitting jobs, taking or not taking risks, showing or not showing emotions, talking or not talking about problems. Some stories tell us what to strive for—the Kennedys, for example, is a tale of power but also public service, versus the Trump story of power and money—while others are about what to fear—being broke, betrayed, abandoned, or controlled.
We also walk out of our childhood with a story about our parents’ relationship. Generally, it falls into two camps: If it was a good marriage, we tend to try to replicate it, or if it wasn’t, we tend to run away from what we most disliked—the constant arguing, never talking, or affairs. We can’t escape having some impression.
Childhood stories
Like our parents’ marriage, our childhood stories also break down into summaries of good or bad, but the storylines are more complex: My brother was my mother’s favorite and got all the attention; my days were filled with dread because I struggled so in school; my childhood was happy because we had money and advantages that other kids didn’t have. And if there has been trauma, there’s another story/decision about the world being unsafe and how we need to be to protect ourselves in the future.
Transition stories
You drop out of college, you get divorced, you are unable to have children, and your business goes under. When there’s struggle and transition, there is also a story to explain what happened: You dropped out of college because you smoked too much pot; you got divorced because your partner had an affair; you didn’t have children because life has never given you what you want or it was a sign that you were meant to throw yourself into your career; your business collapsed because the people around you were out to screw you, or it was simply bad timing.
These parent, childhood, and transitional stories link together to form an attitude, outlook, and philosophy about yourself, the world, and yourself in the world—we naturally want our past, present, and ultimately our future to be cohesive.
But there are two problems with these stories:
They are too simple
Your story that you got divorced because your partner had an affair or that your business partner screwed you provides a one-sentence explanation but ignores the nuances of the relationship and situation. The affair was undoubtedly a culmination of other issues that were not being addressed; the business collapse was probably the result of different factors in play. But if you only carry forward your simple story, you miss the opportunity to learn the lessons life can teach you.
Your stories can hold you back and distort your vision of yourself and life
We tend to not only hold onto stories but use them as the lens through which we view the events in our lives, naturally seeking and, hence, finding confirmation of our stories in our everyday lives. If you see yourself as a loser because of years of school struggles or that life is unfair thanks to your favored brother, you’re apt to view life through the same lens: If your fortunes change for the better, you’re apt to see it as simply a lucky break that will never come again; a success is paired with waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s always easy to find what you believe.
Time to upgrade: Questions
So, what are the stories you tell yourself about relationships, yourself, the world, and life? What is the theme, the tone that runs through them? If you step back from them, how are they too simple, too black and white? What lessons are you failing to learn?
Are there some stories that you realize are no longer true? Are there other options that you need to consider? How would your life be different if you decided to change your story?
What’s stopping you from doing it? Can you start now?
