Recently saw an interesting premise on the blog (called Naming and Treating) of K and J Investigations and Case Management. In a post titled Diagnostic Voices of Community: “control over our stories”, the blogger(s) — Kathy and/or Jeff Gaddess — start by citing the words of New York Times columnist David Brooks:

… unlike the other animals, people … have a drive to seek coherence and meaning. We have a need to tell ourselves stories that explain it all. We use these stories to supply the metaphysics, without which life seems pointless and empty. … Among all the things we don’t control, we do have some control over our stories. We do have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to make sense of the world. … The stories we select help us, in turn, to interpret the world.

The bloggers(s) agree:

… we do have some control in the ways in which we interpret and then project who we are, what we think and feel, and what we have been through. Our stories become us. If we perceive ourselves as victims then this is who and what we will struggle with and be. If we consider ourselves heroic, mostly winning and dominant over adversity, then this sense of self will be the story we tell even if how we see ourselves in this way is not entirely correct.

Inherent in this notion of having control over our stories is the idea that we can change our lives by changing our stories.

I have most certainly known people — some I know quite well in fact — who have wrapped their lives around the story of their victimology and cannot seem to move forward and craft a new story.

I’m at least a bit guilty of clinging to a story that doesn’t serve me well — the one in which I’ve concluded that my contributions will always be undervalued, and I’ll never achieve a certain kind of success.

The other piece of Brooks’s premise — the sensemaking piece — also intrigues me: “We do have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to make sense of the world.” I’m troubled, though, about the large and dangerous faction in the US that presents a false narrative in the guise of “news,” and plays on the population’s vulnerabilities, gullibilities, and especially, fears.

What do you think? Do we have more control over our stories than we do over other aspects of our lives? Do you hold onto a story that’s not serving you? What do you look for in selecting “the narrative [you] will use to make sense of the world”?