The Power and Danger of Stories

Stories are everywhere. They’re how we communicate our ideas and values to those around us and they’re how we try to make sense of the world. When we observe something, our brains tend to automatically write a story around that event in an attempt to explain it and make it fit into the larger picture of reality that we have in our heads. This happens almost instantly in nearly every waking moment, informs most if not all of our view of the world, and is incredibly difficult to notice. As such, stories are almost inescapable.

As useful as they can be, however, stories can also be misleading. They can make any given subject appear much simpler than it really is and make us think we completely understand something or someone when, in reality, we couldn’t be farther off. Someone who believes they have the whole story isn’t going to be very interested in considering that they might be wrong about part of it. Accordingly, once a story is accepted as gospel truth, it’s incredibly difficult to let go of it and adopt another story, even if one wishes to do so.

With practice, it becomes easy to tell when someone is caught up in one or more stories. Indicators include an unwillingness to consider or even listen to other perspectives, insisting that they’re right no matter what, reacting with strong emotion to anything that opposes their viewpoint, and maintaining the exact same perspectives year after year without ever changing their views based on new information. What’s much more difficult, though, is noticing when you’re caught up in a story. Fortunately there’s a handy life hack for this. The stories that you most readily observe in others are often the ones that are most dominant in your own thinking, so whenever you catch yourself noticing someone else’s story, take some time to examine if you are also holding onto that story.

There are several ways to do this. Be mindful of the stories your brain is writing instead of being oblivious to them. Practice thinking of several plausible stories to explain any given event. Get used to observing your thoughts so that you don’t become overwhelmed by any given story. Finally, work on getting rid of stories altogether and just focus on observing the world as it is without having to judge, label, react to, or categorize it. In time, you’ll be able to notice your stories as they’re first being formed and can then choose how to respond to them (it’s fun to laugh at stories, especially when they’re negative).

It’s incredibly freeing to get out of the grip of stories. In addition to bringing about a great deal of inner peace, this allows for a more accurate, more useful, and, quite often, more enjoyable look at the world. Communication and interactions with other people also drastically improve once stories are optional rather than mandatory. There are few things more wonderful than being free from the inner narrator that writes the stories; the resulting mental quietude makes it possible to enjoy each moment as it is instead of putting a negative label on it or missing it altogether due to being lost in thought. In closing, stories themselves are neutral as long as you control them rather than letting them control you. Enjoy them all you like but always take them with a grain of salt and don’t let them make you miss out on the good stuff in life.