listen with due care
stories shape your opinions
even of yourself
One of the most dangerous habits that human beings have is so ubiquitous that we rarely think twice about it, let alone catch ourselves in the act.
If you watch television or movies, you engage in it.
If you read books, blogs, or news articles you do it.
If you engage in conversations, even with a stranger, you’re in it.
It’s the act of telling or listening to stories.
A story is simply a recitation of facts tied together by context and interpretation.
We are meaning makers and stories create meaning out of facts.
The stories that we hear repeatedly shape our worldview.
If you hear stories about certain groups of people, you will form beliefs about those groups that align with the stories you heard.
No stories get repeated to us as much as the stories told to us about who we are. We hear these stories from a young age. With repetition they become part of our self-identity.
And when a story becomes our identity we are likely to reinforce it through our actions.
Confirming to our identity is one of the strongest forces that drives our behavior.
Yet often we are not conscious to the stories people tell about us, even if they tell them to us. Perhaps because we hear them so much we tune out conscious awareness of them.
We don’t have to believe the stories that people tell about us. There’s no reason to be a prisoner of someone else’s story about you.
Start listening to the stories that people tell you about yourself. Especially the people who are closest to you: your family and closest friends.
Those are the stories you are most likely to internalize without awareness.
When you start to attune to the stories that people tell about you to your face you create an opening to reject that story and write a new one.
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