Our reality is a story in our head
Have you ever wondered how people can be self destructive. Take smoking. There is no possible way smoking can be good for you. But the person who smokes has created a narrative that says smoking is good for them. And the story engrains ideas into the persons very identity. Quite literally they feel they can’t exist without acting on the story. Because the story is who they are.
How we see and interact in existence is a story. The way we talk, the clothes we wear, the mates we choose, is all because of our story. Each individual person has a different story running in their minds. This is where that individual snowflake thing comes from. But the thing that makes us all the same is the idea that we are all telling a story.
How the story is made
We were conditioned from birth. Actually before that. As soon as mom gets pregnant, the story has began. Actually even before that. Stories get passed down from generation to generation. It seems like the only way to break this chain is to give a child away. That child, with a new set of parents will be raised with another generational story. Genetic code gets passed down along with the stories. And this child with genetically different parents will adopt a different story but carry the genetic code from their biological parents.
Our story is us
Everyones personalities, actions, and behaviors is the reflection of the story in their heads. Genetic material creates the scaffolding in which the stories can be built. But at the end of the day the stories drive our behavior. But isn’t that liberating? To say we are not our parents. We are a story. And stories can be changed. Yes that is liberating, but I want to know how to change the story in my head and change the story in other people’s heads.
We have control?
Some of you might be thinking “I have control of my story. My story can be re-written.” Have you ever known someone for a long time and that person never changes. They are saying and doing the same thing day in and day out. Never improving. This is a sign of an embedded story. The story is so strong and has such a hold on this persons life, they are completely powerless to alter the story in any meaningful way.
But what about people who change dramatically? Past friends of mine have fallen of the face of the earth. They divorced wives and kids and walked away from it all. They were able to change the story in their heads. Does that make them aware of the story? If the story begins to spiral. Meaning the story is perceived as a negative, chemical altering substances could be the culprit. In general when I am saying take control of the story I am referring to improvements. An example is a black kid who grows up in south central LA and leaves the ghettos to escape a life of drugs and violence. Or a white trash kids from Arkansa leaves the trailer to start a life somewhere else.
How to change the story
The remedy to this incarceration is first the awareness of the story. We need to be aware of the wound in order to heal it. And then we will take the necessary steps to think and act like a free person. This will allow us to change the story. And I think that is what all this self-help stuff is all about. About changing the story.
It seems silly to have to go to such great lengths in order to change it. Shouldn’t we simply be able to change it right away? At our whim. Well for me anyway, it’s not that easy.
My story changing journey dates back to September 2nd 2010. I purchased my first business book called the E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. I clearly remember rejecting the ideas. At this point in my life the story was strong. The story that I knew a good amount of what I needed to know. The story that my ideas and beliefs were true and correct.
Make the story better
We are the narrator of our story. Is there a way to give us more story telling power? If we are constantly watching other peoples stories through social media or tv or movies or news, other people’s stories are being projected on to us. We are passive observers of other people’s narration. This passivity greatly reduces our ability to tell a great story. Because we are never working the story telling muscles. Maybe it is similar to an authors ability to write a great story. Neil Gaiman comes to mind. And David Sedaris. These two men are great storytellers. They have spent the time to develop this ability to tell stories. Can we do the same thing for our personal story? And if we figure out the techniques to make ourselves tell better personal stories, what does the process look like?
I hinted in a previous paragraph that if we are constantly consuming input, normally from technology (phones, tv, computers), we are not exercising the muscle that will make us good story tellers. I am only assuming. I assume this because in general to learn how to do something better takes action. If we are sitting and watching something, we are not at work, we are at rest. It is a passive activity.
We can be passive in other areas as well. We can be passive at work. Simply responding to input coming our way. Passively reacting to those inputs and either taking them to completion or passing it to someone else. Is passivity the killer of our story telling ability? Being a passive observer. Allowing other people and companies to supply us with the stimulation required to feel fulfilled and accomplished. If this is the case, what is the opposite of passive. The opposite is active.
Let’s look at active. What does this mean to be active? I’ll use TV as an example of active vs passive. From the hours of 7-9pm, a couple can decide to do one of two activities. One passive one active. The passive activity is watching a movie together. The active activity is creating a system to help the couple climb out of debt and reduce spending to below their means in order to start saving money. One of these two activities will have a larger impact on their ability to tell a good story. My point is that one can train themselves to be a better story teller by how they spend their time. But the most influential way to tell a good story is by being the author.
Wrapping it up
What does it mean to be the author of your story. To me it means understanding we have little control of how we think and act. We have a parasite in our brains that control us. And the first step is to recognize the parasite before the parasite can be removed. And so I have attempted to become the author by using the following narrative: I have been conditioned to think and act in accordance to those who have raised me and been apart of my life. I don’t have 100% control of how I think and act. The things I say and the thoughts I have are a result of my life’s experiences. This is my awareness and this awareness gives me back some control. When I am closer to the pen I can begin writing my own story. But it will never be 100% me. Because the conditioning runs deep. And fear runs deep. And I am afraid. Afraid of what will happen if I change. If I act and think differently. But maybe if I adopt someone else’s thoughts and ideas I can say “you see, this famous person said this, so now I say it and I have credibility now.”
Your life is only a story. But our stories don’t belong to us. It was written by the people and experiences in our lives. Therefore our story is not us. What we call a consciousness, or will, or spirit, is a collection of tiny experiences. And the longer we continue these experiences, the deeper the story gets engrained in our DNA. We are not the author of our story. But if freeing ourselves and finding our self is a goal, there are ways to go about it. To grab hold of the pen that writes our story, be the author, the first step is the acceptance that we have no free will. What you feel is control is actually our fear.
If life is just stories, then the question is—what is the best story to tell? In my opinion the best story to tell is the story that helps the most people. That sounds very PC but I can’t think of a better story to tell that helps the story teller and the rest of the world.
For me, the story I tell is the story that allows for me to spend my time the way I choose. The story goes like this—I would rather have my own business that will succeed or fail based on how I decide to spend my time, rather than a job who dictates how I am to spend my time. One is a form of liberation and the other is a form of slavery.
Everyday we tell stories to ourselves. It’s all made up. But we are okay with that. Whether we understand that it’s all made up or not, we continue the story. Because the story seems real. As real as a tree or a rock. But how does all this benefit anyone? So what if it is a story. It benefits us because we have the power and the ability to change it into any story we want.
The first step in creating the life we want is to know of the story. Once we are aware of the story, we can begin to make small improvements to get closer to the pen and change the story in our favor.
A few books I recommend
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. It’s all about the way people feel about money and the stories people tell themselves about money. Most people say they are rational when it comes to money. They say “I’m smart with money.” But Morgan Housel doesn’t think that is the case. The author explains people think they are making wise choices but the underlying motive behind all decisions is an emotional based response. And that is the message behind this blog post. The message is that we all tell ourselves stories. Stories that make life palatable.
Another book is Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. In this book the author talks about fiction. Our unique niche. And our complete dominance as a species of human because of our ability to tell stories.
One more book I recommend is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.The author writes about dreams. How we are always dreaming. Even when we are awake. In this dream, we are playing the movie that is our domestication. By domestication he is referring to our conditioning. Our conditioning is all of the interactions and encounters in life. With parents, teachers, peers and everyone and everything else that has crossed our path. The author talks about how we are not truly free and the person that keeps us from freedom is ourselves. We all think that we have free will. We think that thoughts and ideas we conjure are our own. But this is simply not the case. We are a trained domesticated animal and we are acting as such.
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