IT'S ALL INVENTED. MAKE UP A STORY THAT EMPOWERS YOU

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READING TIME: UNDER 3 MINUTES
“Identity is provisional. Who we are is whom we choose to be at any given moment, depending on personality, whim, temperament or subjective need.”
Stealing MySpace:
The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America
by Julia Angwin

“None of us know what made us what we are, and when we have to say something, we make up a good story."
Steven Pinker quoted in
NY Times Magazine, January 11th, 2009

Steven Pinker is 54 years old. He has degrees from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist. Yet, after a lifetime studying how we came to be who we are, his conclusion is as noted above: we’ve made up a good story.

Why does this matter? Because we tend to live our lives based on the stories we make up, but we forget that we made them up. Like children we play “make believe.” The difference between children and us is that the kids know their stories aren’t real.

A friend of mine who has been looking for a job recently read an article in the paper about how difficult (the article suggested “impossible”) it was for people over the age of 50 to find a job. When I met him for coffee, he felt hopeless and demoralized.

Yet literally that same day, I had spoken with another friend, a consultant, who told me that every company she is working with is looking for “older” people because they have experience, maturity, can mentor younger workers and aren’t clamoring to climb the corporate ladder.

Which story is “the truth?”

Another friend, a sales person, frustrated because he hears “No” a lot. He has concluded “I’m not very good at sales. “ I coached a person who is afraid to deliver presentations because “I’m a shy person.” Another friend, age 56, wants to return to school but is reluctant because, “I don’t think I’m smart enough.” I met a woman who wants to write a book but laments, “I haven’t got the time.” A reader of my conflict book told me he doesn’t handle conflict well because, “I’m just an aggressive person.” A cousin told me that he doesn’t want to make up any “rules” about what he will or won’t eat on a diet because “I know I’ll just break those rules.”

These are people who have made up a story and are now living that story. “I’m a shy person” keeps one shy. “I’m not very smart.” keeps one dumb. “I’m not good at sales” ensures that one will avoid risk. “I haven’t got the time” keeps one from finding it. “I’m an aggressive person” keeps one in conflict. “I know I’ll just break the rules I set” ensures failure at fulfilling on commitments.

To these people, these are real stories. The problem is that the stories aren’t real.

Consider the possibility that it’s not the objective “facts” of our lives that stop us and keep us stuck. It’s generally not even a lack of knowledge or education. We can acquire these things.

What really stops us is our beliefs about who we are (it’s the adult version of “make believe”) and these beliefs become all powerful.

Pause for a moment and think of three adjectives you might use to describe yourself. Which one of those is “true?”

Of course, they all are...and none of them. As Julie Angwin notes in her book about MySpace, how we might describe ourselves depends on what we’re thinking, experiencing and feeling at that moment. On another day, we might describe ourselves differently.

Yet we tend to look at that list of adjectives, admit that some are only “provisional,” but then decide that others of those adjectives are actually, “who we are” and that becomes “who we are”...for ourselves and then for the world.

In a world of unlimited possibility, we come to identify ourselves as only a small portion of who we might be and then live our lives out of that identification. Consider the possibility that there is no “you” there.

A more accurate description of “who we are” is the saying on a sweatshirt that my friend Michael Nees sometimes wears: “I am who I pretend to be.” That is is EXACTLY accurate. As Steven Pinker says, no one knows who they “really” are.

So who will you pretend to be today? It’s all a story we’ve made up. Why not make up one that empowers you?

With best wishes,
Larry