Sunday Story…The Stories We Tell

Someone once said…”Man is a meaning making machine.” In other words we tell ourselves stories about what happened and then we make it mean something to us. This is integral to our experience as humans. I have my stories; the state I live in has stories, so does the country, so does my church or spiritual community, so does all the other people who look like me.

Stories make the world go around. But that is all they are…stories. Just made up narratives to give my life and the events of my life meaning. I remember having a conversation with my mother a while back about something that happened to me when I was a child. I shared it with her as a profound event in my life. She had no recollection of the occurrence even after I shared the entire thing. No recollection whatsoever. This is not terribly surprising since the stories I tell myself are my stories made up to give my life meaning.

Here’s my point…these stories are going to be told but the outside world doesn’t care. Gravity exerts the same force, the virus is going to infect people without regard, and the sun will rise and set no matter what the story is I am telling myself. These outside forces have no memories or stories, no knowledge or awareness of the force they are exerting. They just are.

So your stories are good and important…to you. They are part of the way you navigate the world. But for the rest of creation they just don’t matter.

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412