The Narrative Age Is Here: How the Stories We Tell Shape the World We Experience

Better Stories for a Better World

Did you know that telling stories is an awesome responsibility that should never be taken to lightly? It’s true. Whenever you tell a story, you are helping shape the world around you. Telling a story is an act of creation. And as far as I am concerned, it is far too often taken for granted. With stories we can destroy people’s lives and we can resurrect them. We can invite in a world of mind blowing possibilities or minimize the world to mind numbing mundanity. The question is, what will we do with this responsibility once we know we have it?

Facts Tell. But Stories Sell.

I don’t know if it is obvious, but we are moving from the information age into the age of the narrative–the age of stories. Look around you and it is easy to see that how you tell your story matters. Whether it is your personal story, the story of your organizations or the story of a nation, all of your relationships–and the depth of them–are determined by the stories you tell and how your stakeholders are able to locate themselves in your narrative or not. Equally important are the stories we take in and our capacity to metabolize those stories in ways that are additive to the world we are all a part of.

One of the major challenges of any community of any size, from 2 to 2 billion is creating an expansive enough narrative that everyone feels mostly if not totally included. In fact, it has never been done and perhaps never will. But nonetheless, we are driven by the hope of this possibility. And yet, the primary block to creating this narrative is that there are always those who we want to write out of our narratives or those who want to write us out of theirs. Is it possible to do it any other way? Is there room enough for a grander story?

In a 1964 speech, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s friend and fellow civil rights activist, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said:

“The tragedy of Pharaoh was the failure to realize that the exodus from slavery could have spelled redemption for both Israel and Egypt. Would that Pharaoh and the Egyptians had joined the Israelites in the desert and together stood at the foot of Sinai!”

When I read that quote, it jumpstarted my imagination in myriad ways. I thought about whether or not it is possible to create space within ourselves and our organizations for more expansive narratives if we participated in what I am calling “constructive re-imagining”. What this would require is evaluating how our present narratives are working for or against us or our organization and then retooling it to help ponder a better outcome. But in order to begin this process, we would need to know the 3 primary narratives (stories) that shape our worldview, which are:

1. The stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves.
2. The stories we tell about others.
3. The stories that others tell about us that we choose to listen to.

In addition to grasping these narratives, we would also need to understand what the functions of these narrative are, which are to tell us:

1. Where we came from?
2. Where we’re going?
3. How we’re going to get there?
4. Who’s invited?

Once we can take hold of these awarenesses, we understand that the disagreements that lead to conflict among people in groups from as small as two to entire nations generally emerges at the points where the answers to these questions diverge. That’s because it’s at these points where we begin to experience difference as threat. As I like to point out to people, rarely does anyone fight over the questions we ask. We fight over the different answers we come up with to the questions we have in common.

Regardless of whether we express it this way or not, far too many of us hold an “agree with me or suffer the consequences” mentality. In this new age, this aversion to narrative complexity will be insufficient for long-term relational viability. To address this, we will need to build our capacity for cognitive dissonance and align ourselves with people who can manage the tension of seemingly divergent narratives until we can create processes and systems and even new vocabulary to articulate the vision of what is not yet possible but, if we ever want maximum peace and prosperity for as many of us as possible, will ultimately be inevitable.

I am a firm believer in the possibilities of ever expanding harmonious narrative. If we can ask a question, an answer is within the realm of possibility. For example, if I ask myself, “What would it take for me to serve the cause of peace by inspiring millions of people to realize and take responsibility for their part in creating a better world?”, then the answer to how I do that exists. It may come in the form of a book, a standup routine, a movie, or I can become America’s Next Top Model, or any number of possibilities. I simply need to make my life a commitment to answering that question.

What questions are you asking of yourself and others? You will know the trajectory of the dominant narratives influencing your life by the questions you ask. And, if you are not asking questions, the chances are that you are living someone else’s answers to the questions they asked about who you are and what you are capable of. The same goes with the questions you ask about others and your relationships to them. So many of us are living someone else’s answers. We are living someone else’s stories. Think about the number of us who have opinions of people, places, and positions, that we have zero direct exposure to. Don’t you think those opinions are directing you–and to a large degree–your life? And yet, you haven’t asked a question such as:

1. How did I arrive at this conclusion?
2. Is it possible that I don’t have enough information to have a useful opinion?
3. Am I willing to suspend my current position long enough to take in and metabolize new information?

This may be tough to hear. But, if you are incapable of asking yourself these types of questions, then chances are you are not the author of your story. You are a character in someone else’s. If that truly works for you, I am happy for you. But, as I look ahead in the Age of the Narrative, there will be little to no satisfaction in a life where we are willing to simply be characters in someone else’s stories or make fictions of people we know little about. We are already seeing the spiraling effects that visit folks who wake up to realize that they have not lived their lives and have in many cases contributed to the limiting of others simply because they hadn’t developed the capacity to tell better stories for themselves or others. Does that type of future work for you? Or are you ready to tell new stories about what is possible? If it is the latter, stay tuned.