Part 1

Who are you?  What story do you tell yourself? Are you the victim of circumstance? The champion of your own story? Are you at center of the world stage?

The questions that we ask ourselves are where our own stories begin. The ways that we see ourselves, the ways we think the world sees us, are where we begin to form how we interact with people on every level of society. From the personal, to the professional, and to the cultural levels. How do we fit in with our own friend group? Why didn’t we get the promotion at work? What is truth and how can we fit that into our cultural worldviews? These questions all start with how we see ourselves, the stories that we tell ourselves.

Narratives are ingrained into every part of our society. They always have been. The Romans told themselves they were the honorable and civilized while they conquered as much of the world as they could. The Germans in WWII told themselves they were “superior” and so they had the right to do what they thought was right, even when everyone would have told them it was clearly wrong. I am sure the KKK told itself some sort of narrative that painted the group as the “good guys”. Our society learns from stories, we pass information along from stories, we relate best to stories. Jesus, probably the most famous person in history, taught in parables (stories) so that the people could better understand what he was teaching. Stories are probably the most universal part of the human experience. Every culture, every group, tells itself stories to better understand where it came from, where it is going, who they are as a people. These stories are not just a small part of life. They effect every part of life! The stories that we tell ourselves are the foundation for how we react to, and interact with, the world around us. The stories that we tell ourselves effect the world around us, and in turn effect the stories that the culture tells us and tells the people around us.  

Let’s tell the story of the friend who drops everything when his friend needs them. Let’s tell the story of the good friend who rushes over to her friend when that friends mother dies. Let us tell the story of the good friend who listens when we have a problem, and if desired, will give us advise to help us with the problem. Let’s tell the story of the good friend who doesn’t just let his friends do whatever they want to, but instead tries to hold them accountable for the actions they take.

How could your personal life be different right now? Are there things that you desire in your personal life that you don’t have? Closer friends? A significant other? By changing the story that you tell yourself, you can change these things.

What are you doing to go and get those things? When is the last time you opened up to someone about what is going on in your life? Did you tell them the things that you are afraid of? The things that excite you? Probably more important than opening up about your own life, when is the last time you asked someone how they were and really listened to the answer? When your friends think about you do they think you are empathetic and kind? Do they know they could depend on you? Or are you just someone who is fun to be around, but for the serious stuff they would go somewhere else? By listening, being dependable and kind, you can develop better friendships.

That is how you will create good friends. You must listen to them. Let them tell you something without turning the story back to you. Hear them, but don’t just hear, listen. If we tell ourselves the story of a good friend who listens, who cares about what is happening in other people’s lives, we may just find that we start to emulate that good friend. We may find that our friendships improve, that they grow, that they are strengthened. They may grow, they may become something more than they were before.

We could improve our social lives by being better friends, not by expecting someone else to be a better friend to you. Nobody is going to make you do anything, and nobody is going to give you anything. So, If you want better friends, be a better friend. If you want to date, be intentional and say that. Don’t “Netflix and chill”. Not if you want a real relationship. Real relationships take the same things that good friendships take. Time, effort, commitment.

You are the sole person responsible for how you react to events in life. You can either, blame the world for your problems. Or, you can say that no matter what happens to you, you choose how you react. We, as a society, should demand that people take sole responsibility for the actions they take as individuals. Until you stop blaming the world for your lot in life, you will never truly be able to say that you choose differently. You cannot say that that you choose a different life, because if you are going to blame others, or circumstances, or anything else, then you have given someone else, something else, control of your life.

If we had the ability to tell ourselves different stories, we could change the way that we live our lives. Wait, we do. I’m not saying it is easy. Or that you can change everything in a moment. I am going to argue for the exact opposite of that idea.

Change is hard, change takes time, and change starts with you. Nobody else.

I am going to take next week to argue how taking personal responsibility in your work life, can improve it beyond measure. How the stories that we tell ourselves at work, effect what happens to us at work. Just like the story of the “good friend” will teach us to emulate his actions, the story of the good employee, will show us how to succeed in being the good employee ourselves.