Hey, Friends!
I hope you’re not upset by what I’m about to say because it applies to me too:
Everyone is a storyteller, but some of us are liars.
It starts with little things:
~ There’s nothing I could’ve done.
~ I had no other choice.
~ It’s out of my hands.
~ I did all I could.
But then, it morphs into something different. We create narratives that make us feel better about our choices. We conveniently see things in a new and positive light (or for worse than what they actually were). We may even give meaning where there is none. We are human, after all.
If you went to public school in America, there’s a good chance that you read The Road Not Taken at least once.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both”
-Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Sound familiar? My English teachers across the years forced this poem down our throats countless times. It wasn’t until college that I had a professor break it down differently. Spoiler alert: The roads are basically the same, but the narrator goes back and assigns meaning to the situation after having chosen a path.
What is the narrative of our lives if not more than a collection of the stories we’ve lived, survived, and reflected upon? It gets murky. The line between fact and fiction is often blurred. Memory often betrays us.
As for me, I use this to my advantage. I’ve made somewhat of a career out of selectively remembering and creatively reshaping bits of nostalgic pieces of my life. On a day-to-day basis, it’s something I have to keep in check.
Here’s my question to you: What is the narrative of your life built upon?
Truths? Half-truths? Nostalgia through rose-tinted glasses? Maybe you’re just trying to piece together as much positivity as you can. It’s something to think about.
Leave a comment here or on one of my social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn.
Let’s see where the conversation takes us. Until next Sunday…
-Ash