Telling stories

Last semester I took a class on identity and discourse. And the identity part just really grabbed me. While it was about the identities that students have in our classrooms, it really made me think about the identity I think I have as well as the identities people assume I have. In March I even made a flow chart about one of those assumptions – what I study, and how I try to orchestrate it.

My name is another story of who I am, a story that is still evolving and growing as I evolve and grow. It’s a story with deep meaning to me.

This semester I discovered this speech by Chimamanda Adichie, “The Danger of a Single Story.” I think we all fall to this danger at some point. We listen to only one story for a country, a city, or even a person. We hear one story and we think we know the whole person. Which is interesting since we are all at least three dimensional – height, width, and depth. But that depth is important. There are thousands upon millions of stories hiding in that depth of each person.

How many stories do you know about the people in your life? I know I’ve still been surprised by the stories I’m learning about people I’ve even known my whole life. We all have another story to tell. Am I telling my stories? Am I telling them to myself? Am I telling them to others? Or am I hiding them away on a book shelf somewhere where they are gathering dust? Am I truly listening to the stories others are trying to tell me? Do I let people tell me their own stories or do I try to write the endings for them?

Each day is a new story. For you and everyone around you. I think it’s time for some story telling.