The Unfolding Story

Background Series: Spectacle of the Real

This post was first published in 2014.

Our Stories, A Story of Wholeness

Life is movement and change. Each day is different. Each conversation, even on the same subject, is different. Perspectives change. We change. We change jobs. Move to a different city. New relationships start, and others end. We grow older and wiser. We encounter new ideas and ways of doing things. We reconnect with old friends, see our children grow into adulthood, and, for many, we see our parents diminish back into childlikeness.

All this change is a part of the narrative of our lives. But it is not the whole story of our lives.

Combine all the encounters, events, notions, false steps, mistaken assumptions, failed efforts, successful ventures, and times of pure ecstasy, and patterns of meaning will reveal themselves. We'll see that our response to differing situations was often the same, or our opinions about people followed a pattern of judgment that is revealing about who we are, and the truth of our lives and their lives. It is this pattern of response that is the unfolding story of our lives.

What this pattern reveals is the truth about us. It is this truth that I see in our desire that our lives be Personally Meaningful, have Happy, Healthy Relationships and To Make A Difference That Matters. In my previous post, The Call of Desire, I make the point that our desires are a call upon our lives. They bring with them a responsibility to follow where they lead.

This call is a story, an unfolding one that is yet to be completely written. It is not a script that is already written that we are simply following. It is a story that is serialized, a new chapter each day, each moment, each time our desires are exercised in the living of our lives.

Our story unfolds like the opening up of a folded piece of cloth, a large multicolored tablecloth. As it opens, new parts of our lives that were previously hidden from view, now reveal themselves.

If we are stuck, remaining enfolded within what we already know, then, as the world unfolds its own story, as change happens, we become more anxious about change. We want time to stand still. More of our life seems fragmented and alien. We become more isolated.

This isn't the isolation that comes from not knowing what is going on in the world. We may be fully immersed in the fascinating stories of The Spectacle of the Real. The screen's virtual image may capture our interest and imagination in the lives of celebrities. Events manufactured to create news, no longer give us a story that is our own. Our story is a vicarious one lived out through the lives of others.

To find peace, purpose, and wholeness in our lives, we individually must establish a connection between our inner selves and the outer world. We do this through the exploration of the desires that define us as individuals. By acting upon them, we find ourselves in the midst of our own unfolding story. Not someone else's story, but our own.

How ironic that in a time in human history when we are at the apex of the culture of individualism, of the culture of me, so many people have lost their individualism to The Spectacle of the Real. It is time for us to recover our individual responsibility to be ourselves in relationships with others as we create a better world.

What Defines Us.

This whole line of thought began for me many months ago with my post, What Defines Us?. 

There I referred to the influence of my family on my sense of identity. In that reflection, I recognized that my story is a part of a larger one, going back at least six generations, and in a specific instance much more. Choices made by various members of my family that led to historic, life-changing moments in time, are today, influencing how I make my choices, and today, are contributing to defining who I am. Their story grounds me in my own unfolding story.

My story unfolds, just as yours is, and every person we encounter. We each have a story.  The closer we get to understand it, the stronger our sense of who we are as individuals become. My story has not been swallowed up by my family. Instead, I found myself at a young age jettisoned out into the world with the freedom to follow a path that matched my Three Desires. Self-knowledge is not just about one's self, but about all those people and events that have influenced us. They are part of our unfolding story. This is why, for me, life-long friendship has always been important. There are no cast-off relationships, for each encounter, whether for five minutes or five decades is a chapter in my unfolding story.

Most people I know are not clear about their story. They know parts of it. Like sound bites. "Remember where you were when the Twin Towers fell?" We remember snippets of people and impressions of events. We need to remember these events so we can remember the people. We need to reconstruct events that have been instrumental in our lives in order to remember how we responded. To know this over time, to reconstruct our past can lead to seeing patterns of attitudes and behaviors that either helped us advance in life or were obstacles that held us back.

Begin with the events, look for patterns, then create a story. Weave in the Three Desires. Show how what took place reveals the things that matter to you. When we know the values that are most important to us, and we see how those values live in the best of our relationships, or their absence is the reason for the worst of those relationships, then begin to see our story.

When the story begins to be clear, then we begin to see those times when we felt at our best. Identifying that moment in time when I was my happiest self is typically one of those revealing situations. We may see for the first time the impact that we want to have through our life and work. The point when we can define the difference we want to make with our lives that matters, is the point when the story has come together.

The point became clear to me during the Questions & Answers session following a conference presentation on leadership. I had been speaking on the Circle of Impact. One of the participants asked me, "What's the impact you want to have?" Up to that point, I would have said, I want to help leaders build better organizations. Instead, I said,

"I want to see people who don't see themselves as leaders, taking initiative to make a difference that matters. I want to be present for that moment when they make a turn in their lives, to step out and take leadership initiative. There is no more powerful and exciting moment for me than when a person changes their life to become the person they've always wanted to be."

At that moment, my unfolding story took on a new wholeness. My philosophy about leadership was already well-developed. My desire for happy, healthy relationships had been born into me as a child. Now, it was clear to me the difference my life was to make. It was then that I realized that I had my story.

The Story We Tell Ourselves

This is how our stories unfold: one page, one chapter, one event, one revelation, one decision, one action, and one impact at a time.

Our unfolding story is not the one we tell others. It isn't a brand or a marketing narrative. It is, instead, the story we tell ourselves. This is very important to understand.

Every one of us has a story that we are constantly telling ourselves about who we are and what we can do. There is a narrative feedback loop that is reminding us who we are, who we are not, and how we are to think, behave and respond in each situation, encounter, and decision we have.

If your story is, "I can't do this!" or "I'm not going to quit this time!" or "I'm not worthy." or "I deserve this; I'm entitled; I've earned this.", then you are going to respond accordingly when you are placed into challenging, unusual and change-oriented situations.

These stories are not written until we write them. There is no script that we are given that we are obligated to follow. Our stories are always unfolding.

Our stories are the product of many unseen micro-decisions that lead towards and away from things that could potentially define our lives. As human persons, we are free to write our own stories. When we invest our attention in The Spectacle of the Real, we accept the responsibility of following someone else's story for our lives.

I've seen too many people whose lives never approach fulfilling the potential that I see in them because someone else's story for them has control over them. I see this in particular in well-meaning parents who tell their children that they can do anything that they want in life. As I've learned from those who are enmeshed in this kind of co-dependency, they feel the burden of living up to their parents' confidence in them. With those expectations comes the pressure to achieve, and with that their parents' approval and disapproval. Parents see this as love and responsibility. Their children feel it is a burden to live to expectations that are not their own.

Psychologists call this co-dependency, and we live in a culture of co-dependency. This is the culture of The Spectacle of the Real. It is a culture that says, "Trust us; We know better who you are than you do." It is a culture of conformity to whatever the producer of the Spectacle's expectation is of the viewing public. As a result, the #trendingstories of the day replace the stories we tell ourselves. As we lose ourselves in other people's stories for us, we lose the connection we need between our inner selves and the outer world. The stories we tell ourselves are the bridge between the two, and help us to know how we live each day.

A Unique Story

My story is mine. Your story is yours. Your mother's story is hers, your father’s story is his. Your sister’s story is hers, and yours is yours. Each of our stories is uniquely ours alone. It marks our own individuality, not for others, but ourselves.

This story is a product of all the interactions, encounters, endeavors, learning, discovery, influences, and situations that we have had during our lives. It is a story that provides a way to connect our inner selves with the outer world. It is a story that requires us to have discernment about what is good and true and what is false or fake.

This story begins to be written in childhood. If our parents treated us as precious little prima donnas, then the story that we tell ourselves is that we are entitled to privileges and benefits that others are not. If we were bullied, and no one came to our defense, then we tell ourselves that we are not able to take care of ourselves. If a teacher took time to help us discover some topic of learning that inspires us to learn skills for doing math or writing, then we will look for situations where we can use those skills. If we were close with our siblings and friends, then our story tells us that friendship and family are central to our lives.

Our experiences through life, whether good or bad, don't just happen to us. They form us into the people that we are. As a child, I had great freedom to come and go as I wished. Today, that freedom continues to be lived out in my love of travel and the discovery of new ideas.

At the same time, the injury my mother suffered when I was eleven years old, which kept her life in pain for the remainder of her life, has made me more sensitive to others’ pain, loss, and deaths. Our experiences don't just happen to us, they form us into the people we become. As a result, the story we tell ourselves grows out of our life experiences.

An important part of understanding our life's unfolding story is to see that every day we have the opportunity to write the unfolding story we tell ourselves. We don't have to accept the story that we were told as children or the one that comes because of some traumatic experience. We each have the power to write our own story, and with it change the course of our lives. We can choose the impact that we desire to have. In this sense, to write our story is to bring healing to our lives. To create a connection where there was none. Where once there was emptiness, now we find fulfillment. Once we were filled with fear and passivity, now we are making a difference that matters.

Writing Our Stories

The stories we tell ourselves affirm who we are, and provide us with a way to act with integrity. Whatever the values are that we choose to live by, we must be consistent in living those values in order to live with integrity and authenticity. If we are inconsistent, we create confusion about who we are and raise questions about the practicality of our values.

It is for this reason, we keep these value words ever-present in our minds. My approach imagines various scenarios in my mind about how I'd react in one situation or another. This has been extraordinarily helpful in preparing me to respond quickly and truthfully in complex, emotionally charged situations where I must make some statement or decision.

Living out these stories doesn't mean that we have one story that is fixed for all time. We have a story that has a core meaning that is applied in these differing situations. Our values are like a thematic thread that is woven through the length of our lives. This thread ties each chapter of our unfolding story together. We see our lives taking on the form of a serial narrative that makes sense of our lives.

Understanding that this is my story or your story is the key. We must own our own stories. We create them in real-time in real situations and relationships. This is the same story we tell ourselves as we view The Spectacle of the Real. As we watch, our stories are a mirror upon which to see ourselves in the context of the images or commentary that are being presented. Instead of being absorbed and lost in the flurry of images, sounds and opinions, we can see ourselves in perspective. We can see how we fit into situations, or not, and better know how we would respond with integrity and authenticity.

The story we tell ourselves is our living story. As it unfolds, wholeness, meaning, and fulfillment are possible.