Why Story is Letting Us Down In Our Everyday Lives

Ten years ago, I worked at a marketing agency when storytelling and blogging were finally getting some street cred. Folks were seeing the SEO power in regular blogging and it soon became a buzz word to "tell your story." As a writer and editor, I was in my wheelhouse helping business owners shift away from marketing that was stale, outdated and uninteresting, and instead steering them toward owning what was distinctive about their products, services and history.

There was a lot to be said for the business folks who were charting into this new territory--they had tried pushy or lackluster messaging, and they were ready to dabble in something a little more transparent. Story gave everyone a gift in this way: it generally convinced business owners that "Buy my stuff" wasn't a winning pitch. 

Story doesn't hold the sway it once had, and I've been wondering why

But something has been shifting for me recently around story and its use as a mainstream tool. The other day I heard a commercial on TV where some bro said, "Be the hero of your own journey!" Which is a direct and unimaginative lift from a basic writing structure known as the hero's journey. (In short, it's a structure used en masse by writers where there's the main person in a story who is on a quest and who is strategically thwarted and assisted along this quest until they arrive at the destination as, you guessed it, the hero.) The guy in this commercial didn't even try to add flourish to their bastardization of story. I genuinely think they hoped that no one would mind such juvenile pandering. I guess I can appreciate that at least they're being honest about their laziness. With this commercial as just one example, it's no wonder why I've been feeling like story is letting us all down. 

When story is commercialized, it falls flat for a few reasons

First, story is inherently biased. When you think about a story, the details are within the control of one person or a select group of people. There is only so much neutrality that humans can bring when telling a story. This means that the scope of reach is inherently narrow and should be for a specific intended audience. Also, story is finite, one-sided and based in persuasion. Even the writer who isn't writing cheesy commercials is trying to persuade you. If their characters or plot twists aren't believable, the book gets tossed quickly. I also think that story has become too accessible to people who aren't called to be Storytellers (capital letter intended). I think we've forgotten that Storytellers are deeply gifted and called to a very specific path in life. When you function in this world as a natural Storyteller, you stand on sacred ground.

What people want instead of today's storytelling

 I think people are beginning to reject the concept of storytelling as it is today, and they're seeking something more than one-sided, sometimes bastardized, click-this-link or buy-my-product storytelling. (I know I am.) If I could trade out this mass storytelling, I would choose someone someone who will walk. Someone who can walk through something with me or beside me through a challenge I'm facing. What do you think? Think about this, rather than one-sided narratives being pushed on you, walking would require something much more powerful than story as we know it today. It would involve:

- pacing

When you walk beside someone from a place of care and intention, you let their stride influence yours.

- patience

Walking implies that the other person might slow down or stop or get lost or want to do something differently than you had intended—and you have to know how to be patient and collaborate with their needs.

- direction

When you go on a walk with someone, you need to know where you're both going eventually. This isn't an aimless pursuit.

- inclusion

This taps at the first three qualities, but it's important enough to stand on its own: walking beside someone means you can include them and be influenced by their perspectives. This helps protect you from potentially coming across as someone who just talks down to them.

What this means for writers

If you're a writer and you're feeling nervous about the possibility that story is letting us down, don't be. As far as I see things, you're in a place to evaluate what you've done to story and if you've been honoring the talent you have as a born Storyteller. Have you been pulled in by the flashy and shiny and quick storytelling of today's mass market? If so, it's a great time to pull back and look within.

I sincerely believe that the Storytellers are meant to maintain this great tradition and bring back the integrity and singularity that's inherent inside it. If you feel like you've been watering down your writing, writing down things you know are unconvincing or shallow, own it. Own the reality that you live in a world where we all have to pay the bills and a lot of the time that means writing what the people want. But what you write on your own time is for you and it's sacred. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

What this mean for non-writers who have been pretending to be Storytellers

I think it's time for non-writers to hand the storytelling back to the people who know what they're doing. It's time to take a look at what you've been convincing yourself is worthwhile to talk about and be brutally honest. If it sucks, it goes. If it panders, it goes. If it is not built from a foundation of trustworthiness, it goes. And if you are not a born Storyteller, hand the reigns back to someone who is and listen to them. Let them speak to what it means to share a story in the right way, at the right time with the right person. It's OK if you're not a natural Storyteller. What I know, without a doubt, you have the capacity to do is walk. Walk beside people in your life and your business—check your listening skills and your ability to keep pace with the people in your sphere. Do you know how to slow down for their sake? Whatever you do, let go of story for the sake of selling and let the Storytellers lead the way again.

Sadness and joy go hand in hand

I was riding in the car with my husband the other day and he said, "Maybe one day you'll have a story from your past that isn't sad."

I gulped. I looked in my lap, then fluttered my eyes across the landscape of the Colorado mountains outside our car. My head felt like it was banging up against an invisible brick wall, as it often does.

Quickly I scanned my memory for something happy.

Oh, what about the time I negotiated my salary with a law firm for $12,000 higher?

That was happy, he said.

I tried to change the subject then to another happy story, but it ended up having a sad part in the middle. But don't worry, I apologized and then slumped down in my seat in an effort to let my body language do the talking for me, which is always a bad idea if you're married.

I felt ashamed and sad (for telling sad stories) as my mind was flipping through the emotion buttons being pushed inside me. Finally, my brain and all my myriad parts let me land.

I realize sad story telling might not be everyone's idea of a good time. And I'm not sure I could handle listening to the same volume of sad stories from another person if they weren't also healing me at the same time.

But it got my thinking, Why sad? Why dark? Why sorrow? And is that such a bad thing?

In practice, telling sad stories gives most of us an outlet, a way to process what has hurt us out loud with a fellow soldier to take note. It gives the sadness a way to see the light of day and be less of a haunting presence.

Most of my sad stories can pop to the surface in the snap of a finger. They're always there. Crisp, clear and ready to feel relevant to whatever someone is talking about. Sometimes the sad stories come screaming to the surface, and I have no choice but to say them out loud, or they'll begin chewing on my body parts from the inside out.

Sometimes I think the words to that famous song should've been, "Hello, Sadness, my old friend." Not everyone wants to admit they like the darkness, but everyone has been in the company of sadness.

Sadness has become such a friend to me that it's often the only thing that feels truthful. If you don't know how to be sad, I'm not sure we can be friends. I'm not sure I really relate with people who always, always, always catapult right over the grim reality of a situation to land in happy pastures. I kind of resent those people because it feels like the easy way through life, you know? To see everything as having a silver lining might be nice for you, but it just leaves someone like me feeling like I've done something wrong.

It wasn't until I studied the nature of impermanence and began exploring it in my daily, sometimes minute-by-minute, experiences of life that I discovered that sadness and joy go hand in hand.

And that means that they come and go just as quickly.

At first, I was gutted by this realization—what made me sad all the time is that joy dissolves.

It comes and goes. It has its own life force and cannot be clamped down and put into a jar. Joy rises up and it falls down. The cycle continues for eons. This isn’t what I was taught in Christianity. If you have Jesus, you should always have joy! Now that you follow God, you should never be sad about anything at all because what is sadder than who you were before, you know, when Jesus was planning to send you to burn in the fires of hell? Joy was supposed to be one of the ultimate signs that I was a leader you ought to follow. Nothing gets me down, God dammit. Except that it does … a lot, all the time, every day. And it’s taken me years to not be ashamed of sadness, despair and so on. Which is why I suppose I’m evening writing about my sad stories in the first place.

Because impermanence taught me to see things so differently. It taught me that just as joy can dissolve, so can sadness.

If part of joy's job is to radiate through our bodies so that we're bursting full of sunlight and Care Bear smiles just long enough to fill up our tanks and leave us, then, so too, is the job of sadness.

Sadness comes into us to do a job, to teach us something, to show us something new. Sadness shows up because we are human beings living in a world where sad things happen way too often. But it isn't the only one that might have the final word. It might have a lot of words, but it doesn't necessarily have the final word by default.

Sadness eventually gets digested, just as joy does. And I'm convinced that none of us have an access port to sadness without also being able to receive joy, somewhere, no matter how small.

If you're in a season where it feels like joy forgot how to make its way back in, I feel you. I've had seasons, decades even, where the sadness was so permeable that I thought I might infect people if they bumped into me too much. So I know it's probably really annoying to hear someone say this, but I'm going to say it anyways:

The joy is coming back.

That's its job.

And I know this because the minute sadness lands in your body, it begins digesting.

It offers a message, it gets to work and is ready to be on its way. I'm not exactly sure whether sadness transforms into joy, or if it merely mutates back and forth as part of the human condition. But if you ask anyone who has experienced immeasurable grief, they will tell you that the joy comes back. It might look and feel differently. You might find it living in a different part of your inner human hotel. But it does return.

When I think back to that conversation with my husband about my sad stories, I think I've learned something else.

I share the sad stories because I'm strong enough to say them out loud and not crumble to pieces.

They aren't bouncing around my insides and wreaking havoc on me.

They can rise inside me when I let them, and they can fall away again when I let them.  

This back-and-forth with my own inner sadness might come across as evidence that I'm never happy.

 But I know now that when I let sadness in, I’m also making room for something glad that is already on the way.