The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Perception and masks the stories we tell ourselves

Finally the actual post

Perception and masks the stories we tell ourselves

We all perceive ourselves in different ways. When we look into the mirror of our lives, we see something that looks mostly like us. This reflection is colored with traits and stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Some people look in the mirror and think they’re beautiful. Other people look in the mirror and think they’re ugly. A neutral third-party may see those people as exactly the same. We look with our eyes, but through our soul. Our eyes only produce the stimulus. We then interpret and attribute meaning and agency to what we perceive through the models we have built of the world. A common example is eskimos having many different words for snow. When they look out on a snowy day, they do not just see a lot or a little snow, but the different types of snow that fall. The snow that will become ice, the one that melts when it hits the ground, and the one that creates powder and fluffiness. Someone who had never seen snow before just sees snow. They do not know what it even feels like or tastes like or how the moon reflects off of it to light up the sky on a dark night. Eskimos understand so much about snow because it is a part of their way of life. Snow is an integral part of their world, so they have built complex models to understand snow.

We do this in our lives as well. We don’t understand what we can’t conceive. Perception shapes reality. We are inherently biased by the models we have built in our head to understand the world. Imagine a big chihuahua fighting a small Great Dane. Your models of big and small are both absolute and relative to color the interaction. The small Great Dane is likely 5x bigger than the chihuahua. This shows how having a nuanced set of models in our heads can allow us to make contradictory judgements to more accurately understand the world.

Bias isn’t inherently good or bad; it just is. However, failing to recognize that everything we see is very biased, leads us to have a warped view of reality. We all have different mental models that lead us to see the world in different ways. Moreover, as we grow and learn these models change. Our perception of the world is a moving target, always evolving. No man steps into the same river twice. Things grow and fade on us. We fall in and out of love. Friends come and go in our lives. The song stuck in our head plays for a week straight until it is almost completely forgotten. We see the world in a very particular way, and this perspective is constantly evolving. We are shaped by the stories we tell ourselves. We have the power to craft the stories that serve us and forget the stories that don’t. Life amounts to a set of stories we tell ourselves, so the simple way to live a better life is to tell better stories. Better is subjective, but ultimately is more aligned with who we are at our core. Better stories are more authentic stories that lead to us genuinely being ourselves and living the life we want. When we do this, we are likely to live happier lives.

Our perception is most visible with physical appearance, but most prevalent in the internal lives of our head. Our thoughts profit from their ambiguity; you can convince yourself of anything in your mind. Thoughts are subjective and unclear. Bad thinking can easily fall through the cracks. Anyone can look at their BMI and see a number, which corresponds to some reasonable level of how they look. This has little bearing on if they think they are in good shape or not. Someone who just lost 100 pounds could be in the best shape of their life and feel great while someone who just put on 5 pounds can think they are out of shape. These people can look exactly the same. This is the power of stories and our life is governed by the stories we tell ourselves and the masks that we put on to play the parts in those stories.

We tell stories at all different levels. We tell stories about our capability, looks, how we feel, our actions, and our ambitions. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are the most important stories because they define how we see ourselves in the world. All stories are an internal fabrication, to some degree, but what you say about yourself you accept as true more than anything. That is because the stories you tell yourself about yourself are playing on loop in your head. You can avoid interacting with anyone, but you cannot escape your mind. The people who manage to escape usually do it through some sort of drugs, but this only suppresses thoughts, which return after the effect wears off. The goal of meditation is fully integrated harmony with your mind. It is not about suppressing thoughts, but welcoming them so radically that you can always be fully present with yourself. The internal stories we tell ourselves about who we are shape how we show ourselves to the world. What you believe about yourself has a massive effect on who you become. We not only tell stories about how we exist in our minds, but also stories about how we exist in relation to others.

The mind is a powerful place and we tell a wide range of stories to feed it. We have many stories that allow us to exist, survive, and thrive in the jungle of humanity. We have stories we tell ourselves at work. We could be the boss or a new employee, and we expect to tell ourselves different stories leading to different tasks and responsibilities based on these titles. The stories you tell does not have to do fully with job title. A new employee can act like the owner or view the job as a paycheck. This may lead to varying success in your job and life. Ownership may give you more agency and stress, but allow faster progress. Viewing work as a paycheck may allow you to compartmentalize the experience at the cost of fast improvement. Neither of these are inherently better, but the stories you tell yourself about your external environment must intentionally serve the life you want to live.

Then there are the stories we tell ourselves about the relationships in our lives. This person really likes me. This person hates me. I shouldn’t have said this to someone. When you go see that person, all of that subtext is prevalent in that conversation. The words are not an input to conversation, but an output of the stories you tell yourself about your relationship. The conversation is based on every conversation and interaction you’ve ever had leading up that that moment. These stories start more flexible but ossify over time. Ossification brings comfort, but it can be at the cost of dynamism. Problems in relationships come when the stories you tell each other about the relationship become both hidden and toxic. There is an elephant in the room when you talk, but neither of you can say the quiet part out loud. Great relationships likewise rely on fully transparency and trust. You have control over the stories you tell each other. Great relationships do not have to be fully egalitarian. Parents and children can have amazing relationships while respecting the hierarchy. Healthy relationships are defined by mastering the shared stories. They have to be equally embraced, loved, and accepted by both parties or there will be a gap in how they see each other. True relationships thrive when people see each other both honestly and how the other person thinks they are seen and wants to be seen. There is so much that colors the perceptions of our relationships and lives. These perceptions are visible and obvious, but not always recognized and seen. Great relationships are rooted in mastery over stories allowing you to truly see the other person for the magnificent being they are.

At a level above interpersonal relationships is our community or society. Based on where you’re born, you have a different idea of success in your mind. If you’re born in the city, maybe you want go into business. If you’re in the country, maybe you want to own a farm. If you’re born into a bad area, maybe you see gangs and drugs as the ideal route to a successful life. Crime is bad. However, when you look at the successful people in your community and realize they have realized success by turning to a life of crime, crime starts to look like a good path. Different societies and communities create different hierarchies, roles and values. We used to have a clear caste system and hierarchy. You were high or low born and this could not change. The expectations of these groups were clear and rigid. We think this is gone, but it has actually gotten worse in some ways. Humans have made that explicit hierarchy implicit through societal norms. Some of these norms are benign to good. No shoes not shirt no service is a great rule to have at a McDonalds. However, at a bar on the beach it would be a horrible rule to have. Likewise, asking someone on a beach for their cheeseburger and giving them money will likely get you punched in the face, but that is the entire purpose of McDonalds. Different norms for different community values.

Some of these norms are more or less harmless to positive. The rules of the road are a very powerful set of societal norms that vastly improve transportation. The fact that a person can see a color on a traffic light and decide to either walk in front of a 2 ton death machine not knowing nothing else about that other person is borderline witchcraft. 3 flashing lights, 2 yellow lines, and a sidewalk are what stand between efficient transportation and certain death. There are both a lot of crazy and stupid people in this world, but almost everyone follows the rules of the road. While there is enforcement for mistakes, this is some incredibly high-level coordination stuff. The stakes are incredibly high but the systems is incredibly simple. There are people you wouldn’t trust to watch your kid for 5 minutes that you are trusting with your life going 60 mph on the highway next to you. This is the power and impact of good societal norms. The rules of the road are an obvious example because they are both so implicit and explicit. If someone is trying to jaywalk across the street, people slow down they do not speed up. There is no rule about checking your mirrors and blind spot before you switch lanes, but almost everyone does it.

This is just one very specific example. There are countless more examples of cultural values that have a massive effect on our who we become and our outcomes in life. Being able to stray from the norm is so hard. It is much easier to accept the story told in your community about who you are and what you can do. When we accept the stories our community and society tell us, we do not live our lives, but the cookie cutter life we were predisposed to. You need to craft your own story or a unique story to your situation. At the societal level, there are so many stories about what you should do because of your age or gender or socioeconomic status. These stories come for free and preloaded based on who you are and the life you lead. These stories are inherently subjective, meaningless, and neutral. They could be super positive. They could be super negative. They are everywhere. These stories underline the subtext of every conversation and interaction you have in your life whether you like it or not. They mentally place you in society and help you place others in society. They create expectations for all interactions. These stories are the fabric of society.

The people who take control of their life are the ones who are able to take the pen and control the stories they tell themselves internally, in their relationships, in their community, and in their society. Telling the right stories does not guarantee success, but telling the wrong ones guarantees failure. The only way you have a chance at crafting your stories is by understanding them. Mindful awareness. Become aware of the stories that you’re telling. Only then can you analyze and shape them how you’d like. This is very obvious and simple, but incredibly hard to do. This can take a lifetime of effort and lead to a failure to recognize even the simplest stories because your brain wants to hide them, or the most complex stories could be discovered and changed in a second. Change is a process not a thing and adheres to no timeline. Societal stories guide our lives in a significant way, but have almost no origin in who we are. Transcend who society wants you to be by being your unique self.

These stories come from many places, but real change comes from understanding who you are. That understanding prompts action. First make these stories visible. The issue with a lot of these stories is we do not even realize we are telling them and don’t know what they are, so they run our lives cloaked in invisibly. Being behind the wheel with no control is not the way to live your life. Many of these stories are so ingrained in who we are that they feel inseparable from us. We think they are as much a part of us as the blood that flows through us. Invisible, rarely thought of, but governing our existence. The stories are much more akin to the clothes we wear than while lies beneath. We have a fixed style and governed by our closet. Changing all the clothes comes at a cost, but is far from impossible. Changing the stories is hard because they feel attached to us, but they can be removed. Change is hard. Change requires us to dig deep into our minds and think. Changes comes when we are present in our interactions at a deeper level in order to realize what’s actually being said.

We identify the stories through mindful awareness and good conversations. These stories won’t always become present or clearly reveal themselves to you. The most important ones burrow deep inside of you far from view. They are such a deep part of you that they don’t feel like a story at all. They feel like you because in all honesty they are you. When you do become aware of them, they prove too scary to consider, let alone voice to the world. Being able to dig them up and having the bravery to face them is the key to changing them. Once you can identify them and see them in the light of day, you see them for what they are. They are no longer hidden in an abstract way that thrives in the ambiguity of your head like a monster in your closet. They smack you in a very visceral clear way that confronts you with the problem directly. You have no choice. You look at it and see it for how it really is. Once you see it for how it is and honestly see it for how it is, you can start to move toward changing. The first time you see these stories you may run; cower in fear of the truth. Confronting uncomfortable realities is one of the hardest things we are faced with. Most people turn away in fear. The issue is these problems will not go away until you face them. The only way out of pain is through processing it. Suppression only makes the pain compound creating bigger problems.

You must start to craft the stories that you want to tell. Choose the ones that serve you and forget the ones that don’t. Work to make the right changes. You could see yourself as a great friend, but, in reality, be hated by everyone. Likewise, you can see yourself as a horrible friend, but be trusted and loved by many. You could want to lose weight and have started to work out, but you have put on weight. This can lead you to tell the wrong story. That your plan isn’t working, but in reality things take time. This discourages you from delaying gratification. Maybe your workout regimen is perfect, but your diet is shit. Exercise is only part of the story you need to tell yourself. You may also need to change the stories you tell yourself around your eating habits to change the bigger story of losing weight or being healthier. There are so many stories we tell ourselves. Identify them, understand them, change what does not work, double down on what is working, and craft the stories you are missing. Change happens when we look at these stories objectively and honestly. We can see how they affect us and judge. Make sure every story we tell ourselves serves us in the right way. Craft the narrative that you want in your life. Who do you want to be? What stories do you want to tell yourself? How do the stories you currently tell serve you? What is the path you want to take? What stories should you start and stop telling to go down that path?

Craft the right stories. First you become aware of the stories you tell yourself, then you look at those stories and tell if they actually serve you, and then you start to make new ones that direct you. All stories you tell yourself serve you in some way. Some of these stories are meant to create pity and allow yourself to play the victim. Feeling sorry for yourself allows you to accept some of life’s failures and bad luck, but it does not ultimately lead you down the path of progress and a better life. You feel much better in the moment when you tell these negative stories. They are like a drug addiction or bad relationship. That next hit numbs the pain for long enough for you to forget. That person can be fixed and it is your fault they act this way. These are normal stories people tell themselves and that is ok. Denying you do this is a step in the wrong direction. Thinking these stories are allowing you to realize your most authentic self is a step in the wrong direction.

These stories are the things you cling to when everything is going bad not because they help, but because they feel like home. When you take that chance and it does not work out, are you a failure or did you just take another step on the path to success. These are both reasonable things to say. They serve a different personal archetype and lead to different outcomes, but there are people who say both of these things to realize who they want to be either implicitly or explicitly. You want to say everything you say because you say it. Even if you do not like to say these things you are complicit in not trying to stop them. Furthermore, they live in your head. You are saying them. No one has control over your mind but you. Every story you tell yourself is intentional. If you hear something that you don’t like, investigate it. What part of you is this serving. Should you really feed this part of yourself? Is this the path to the life you want to lead and person you want to be? This is the person you are becoming and you do not get a second chance at life, so it better be who you want to be.

Control your mind. Tell and craft only stories that serve you and get rid of the ones that don’t serve you. You should tell stories that serve you in a deep and visceral way. Good stories breathe life into the deepest parts of your soul and bad ones can deflate you on your best day. Good stories are obvious when said. Everyone wants to be a happier person. Some people have achieved a level of happiness where they can say, “I am a happy person” others have to accept that they are, “taking steps to become happier,” while a third group may have to accept that, “my life is not a happy one right now.” These stories can all serve you at different points in your day or life. When you are running, you are taking steps to become happier. When you want to give up or pass out, you need to accept your life isn’t a happy one at that moment and the only way to achieve happiness is to push through. When you finish, you can look at what you have accomplished and acknowledge you are a happy person in this moment. Such is with life. The right story does not lie to you. It does not make you feel worse or better than you are, but allows you to realistically see the world. A good story is rooted in deep self-awareness of where you are and where you want to go.

In life, you are always going somewhere. Being pushed by the unyielding arrow of time toward the future. The future brings change and change necessitates new stories that adapt to the times. When you’re younger you might tell yourself you’re a free spirit. After you have kids, you might have to tell yourself that you’re a dedicated parent and you shouldn’t really be going out every night. These are both stories that serve you even if they are completely different. Part of controlling the stories you tell yourself is positioning to transcend yourself through those stories. You rise above who you are by believing in who you can become. Transcendence allows you to live above yourself and act as the man behind the curtain of your life. Intentionally pulling the strings you want. Transcendences makes you the puppeteer and the puppet. Life changes and we all must change with it. True mastery over life and stories is not success in the moment, but across the expanse of your life. Calling a coin flip correctly is pure luck, but true mastery is integrating each random chance event into the arc of your life. Success across time requires you to transcend fads, which only comes from a deep understanding of yourself and mastery in the flexibility of your stories.

The stories we tell ourselves dictate the lives we live and who we become. Internal dialogue colors our lives and influences our actions at the deepest level. We never consider what these thoughts are because they are so engrained in the fiber of our being. It’s imperative that we craft the right story to dictate the arc of our life. Identify stories that we shouldn’t be telling ourselves. Amplify the right ones we are telling ourselves. Create the new ones to guide who we want to become. Start implementing systems that are simple and gradual. Change is a long term gradual process. This is the journey of a lifetime and does not just happen because we want it to. Make plans, craft simple systems, and own your life. Grab the pen to book of your life and write a more authentic, happier, and true to you story. When we open the book of our lives, we should not see a bunch of words, stories, or events. We should see a reflection of ourselves.