If someone gave you one hour of their undivided attention, what would you tell them about yourself?
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It takes courage, generosity, and love to step into a StoryCorp booth with the facilitator, sit across from a loved one, and say the four things we all need to say to the people most important to us: “Thank you; I Love You; Forgive Me; I Forgive You.” StoryCorps forces you to face mortality in a way, by giving you a chance at closure, leaving nothing unsaid between you and the other.
Dave Isay, the 2015 TED prize winner, opened the first StoryCorps booth in New York’s Grand Central Terminal in 2003. Why? To honour someone who matters. How? By interviewing them about their life and listening to their story. The recordings are then sent to the American Folklife Centre at the Library of Congress, forever preserved for future generations. StoryCorps has now recorded over 100 thousand interviews from people of all walks of life and age groups, in over 80 different languages. It has become the largest single collection of human voices ever captured.
When Dave Isay was 22 his father told him a story that would change his life. Actually, his father, in short order, told him two stories that would inform his life and profession. You have probably been told a story at some point that has marked you; I know I have. I have been told at least three significant stories so far that have deeply affected me. I am open to the possibility I might have told someone a story that has deeply affected them. As I have matured and become more compassionate, I have realized that so many of my friends have profoundly important and interesting stories that I need to bear witness to.
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You might have been told directly or indirectly at some point in your life that your story does not matter.
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Stories matter, and not just in the manner of oral or written tradition passing down the morals of your tribe. Stories can give us a sense of community, or the courage to go it alone. They can make us laugh or cry. They can inspire us to action, or give us pause to reflect. Stories connect us to each other intimately by humanizing the other into recognizable form.
Some of the most significant stories are the ones our minds tell us: an event happens, we attach meaning to that event, feelings arise in relation to the thoughts we have about our situation, actions ensue, consequences reveal themselves, and the cycle continues ad nauseum. Those are not the stories I want to touch on today though.
An enduring fable I have recently come to cherish is known as the “Hero’s Journey”. Paulo Coelho wrote a version of it in The Alchemist. Most of us know The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum which is also a hero’s journey. American mythologist Joseph J. Campbell (1904 – 1987) studied this central pattern of storytelling that shows up across cultures, from the story of Jesus to Star Wars. He found that around the world, each village, tribe, and culture has an identifiable hero’s journey in its collective consciousness. I find great comfort in this story when I am struggling to make sense of my life.
The hero’s journey always follows the same pattern: your soul is calling you to follow your heart, chaos rips your life apart to send you on a journey to your destiny, you then encounter the road of trials with challenges to teach you what you will need to know to ultimately get through the dark night of the soul. This plot-line has grounded me in the last year as I continue on my road of trials. The final part of the hero’s journey calls for the protagonist to return to his community and share his story. Why would recounting his adventures to his community be an important part of a hero’s journey? I will let you decide that for yourself.
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You might have been told directly or indirectly at some point in your life that your story does not matter. Dave Isay does not believe that. Dave Isay wants StoryCorps to move into a global act of listening through his App, the reason he was awarded the TED prize. StoryCorps wants to know who are you, what you have learned in life, and how you want to be remembered.
I think the beauty in acknowledging and taking ownership of your story is that at any point you can work to change the direction the plot line is taking you. If I do not like what I would tell you about me if I shared my story with you today, I can change the arc so the next telling is a little more to my satisfaction. And I can keep on tweaking my adventure. Harley Davidson said: “When writing the story of your life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen.”
I have a beautiful framed poster next to my work station that a friend gave me after I posted the meme to Facebook declaring my love for it. The picture is of a sailboat in stormy waters with massive waves, under a night sky filled with stars that reads: yours is a story, so brave and so true, and life is awaiting the hero in you.
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You exist; tell your story to someone.
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Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014) said: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
I am not afflicted anymore by the agony Ms. Angelou describes, because I have a keyboard, a willingness to let the muse take over, a need stronger than ego or fear, and the internet. When I write, I drip bits and pieces of my heart’s story into that work. I consider it my soul’s calling to observe and question, and then share my musings with the world, but in doing so, I write through the veil of my perspective, and as such, I am telling you my story, fragments and shards at a time, no matter what I am writing about. By my life’s end, I may have shared my entire story indeed. My writing is my story telling that lets me know, “I exist.”
So do you. You exist; tell your story to someone. Or get the App and honour someone by listening to their story.
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Photo:Flickr/Steven Depolo