What’s Your Story?
by Daryl Daughtry, Publisher
Stories are a part of our daily lives. A day doesn’t pass without hearing, reading, or telling a story. It’s impossible to spend a day with another person without hearing stories that shaped their life. The stories we carry around in our head connect us and shape our worldview. What’s your story?
Since childhood, most of the information about the past, the present, and the foreseen future has been passed to us through stories. From social interaction to the news, documentaries, movies, and advertisements, stories dominate most forms of communication. However, those stories are biased, have an agenda, and some aren’t even true.
There are different versions of every story. So, depending on a person’s age, education, maturity level, and surroundings; five people could give you five versions of the same event. Life is filtered through our memories and beliefs which aren’t the same as the next person’s. That’s how different interpretations happen.
You have stories in your head, both positive and negative, that influence your perspective and decisions and a lot of them aren’t true. Some are wrong interpretations of events when you were young. Some were passed on through family and culture. Just because you think it, doesn’t make it true.
Past experiences in life have created false stories about yourself. When things fell apart, you labeled yourself a “loser”. When you didn’t make good grades, you labeled yourself as “dumb”. When relationships ended, you labeled yourself as unlovable. You would be amazed at how many labels are keeping you down.
Now the good news. You can rewrite your stories. You can even correct your memories. Challenge them and take a fresh look from an older and wiser view. Don’t let your long held emotions distort the truth. Consider how your negative stories were originally formed and tell yourself the truth.
If you live in the negative stories from your past, your past won’t let you live. Learn from your heartaches and mistakes and move on. Unfair and unpleasant experiences are inevitable, but your response to them is optional. Are you going to grow or shrink? It’s totally up to you.
When looking at someone else‘s life, you also create a story about them. But, behind what you see are experiences and circumstances you don’t see. There are earlier chapters of their life you should know about before labeling them. Don’t ever judge anyone by the current chapter of their story.
Everyone has a story and everyone’s story can change, including ours. Everyone has awful things in their past, including us. Sometimes people needs things like mercy and forgiveness to move forward, including us. Sometimes we need to let go of things we can’t change. What are you holding on to…? What’s your story?
