Control your narrative, control your life

"He who controls the narrative…"

… controls the world.
… controls the universe.
… wins.

A quick Google search will give you dozens of different twists on this phrase, but all with the same idea. Whoever controls the narrative, or the story, also controls the power.

Courtesy of GraphicStock.com

Why? Because people are inherently, universally, story tellers who experience the world as a series of selected stories. In fact, according to communication scholar Walter Fisher (or at least to this Wikipedia article on his theory of narrative paradigm and narrative rationality), "the ways in which people explain and/or justify their behavior, whether past of future, has more to do with telling a credible story than it does with producing evidence or constructing a logical argument."

This explains why people are more likely to remember and rely on anecdotal stories than scientific evidence when making personal decisions, even if those decisions can have a significant impact on their health, finances or other areas of their lives.

Take vaccines, for example. When some people think about vaccines, they think about Jenny McCarthy on Oprah, or that one friend of a friend's kid who had a negative reaction, and they opt out. I think about the newborn baby in the hospital with whooping cough at the same time that my newborn baby was in the hospital. And I opt in.

I happen to believe in the evidence that vaccines are effective, but it isn't just the evidence that persuaded me. It was the feeling of fear and anger that, of all things I had to worry about as a new parent, whooping cough was still one of them.

We might forget the facts and the details, but we will always remember how a story made us feel.

Which is why whoever controls the narrative, controls the power.

We need to be aware of the narratives around us

Now, I don't want to turn this thought into a debate about the media or politics. While those are important discussions, I think this concept has a much more direct impact on us as participants on Steemit. Like any social media site, when people post to Steemit, they have an opportunity to create and control their own narratives. And their narrative and reality are not always the exact same thing. In fact, arguably, they are never the exact same thing. No matter how genuine and authentic a person strives to be, we still only see them as they choose to present themselves.

Because of that, we should always maintain a level of caution.

Here's a narrative to illustrate my point. I follow a couple of blogs by Penelope Trunk. I started reading her career blog several years ago, and then followed her education blog when she branched into unschooling, even though the topic doesn't really interest me, simply because I enjoyed her writing.

I followed her narrative as she married "the Farmer", moved her kids to the country, and started her unschooling journey. Recently, Penelope decided to move her kids, who are now much older, back to the city where she says they have more opportunities to pursue their education and career goals. She is also ending her abusive marriage.

Or is she?

I don't want to cast doubt on a victim of domestic violence and abuse, but having followed her blog for several years, I'm having a hard time buying her story. It feels a little Gone Girl-esque to me.

Of course, I could be completely wrong.

It's impossible to make a sound and accurate judgement based on a single narrative, especially if you don't have the facts to back it up. Even though, as humans, we do this all the time.

Our own narratives matter most

It isn't just others' narratives that we need to be aware of. It's also our own. Because while the narratives told by others can have a big impact on our lives, nothing affects us more than the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.

Here's another story to illustrate my point. I signed up to run a half-marathon in a couple of months. At the time, I thought this was a great idea. Now, I think I may have made a huge mistake. It turns out running is hard. And I have a long, long way to go.

Today, since it is pouring rain outdoors, I decided to train on my elliptical machine. I didn't have a set goal in mind -- I just wanted to see how far I could get. Within five minutes, my legs were on fire and the self-talk on how impossible this was going to be was already in full swing. I kept thinking about how far I had to go, and how -- if I was feeling this terrible after only five minutes -- there wasn't a chance in hell that I'd be able to run for more than half an hour.

Mentally, I was on the fast track to failure.

But then a good song came on my soundtrack, and I thought, I can push through this song before I quit. And when the song was up, I thought, I can do another five minutes. And then, I can run another two miles. I kept setting new mini-goals, and each time I reached one, my confidence in my ability to reach another grew. Until finally, I hit a wall that I could not push through.

Then I laid on the basement floor and died for a while.

But all-in-all, I'm proud of my progress. It's a good start.

And all I really had to do to reach it was change my narrative.

If you enjoyed this post, resteem, upvote and follow @redhens. Check out some of my other recent posts, including:

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