As a child, you’re particularly susceptible to the stories people tell you. But we’re all susceptible. In fact, we’ve been bred that way… for generations. Look closely and you’ll soon agree that as a culture, we have a deep fascination with stories. Turn on any popular show these days and watch a few minutes; sooner or later the camera tightens on someone’s face as they launch into “When I was twelve…” or “My father always used to….” Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, but I can’t unsee the pattern anymore. Fair warning: once you notice it too, you’ll never watch TV the same way again. The script almost always unfolds like this:
“I’ve always been fascinated with the ocean. Growing up, my father promised my sister and me he’d take us. Whenever he left on a work trip, he’d say, ‘When I get back, I’m taking you to the beach. We’re going to build sandcastles.’ I remember waiting on the porch for days. My mom would try to redirect me—‘Your father won’t be home for some time’—and I’d pretend I just liked being out there. Eventually I’d go play, but when his car pulled in, my sister and I were ready. ‘I’m tired,’ he’d say. ‘Tomorrow we’ll go, I promise.’
Tomorrow, though, never came. The last time I saw him, he told me we were going to the beach, and something in his voice made me believe him. I climbed into the car in my swim trunks with a towel. We made it as far as O’Malley’s. He left the engine running—‘I’ll be right back.’ I watched him disappear into the noise and neon. He never came out.”
These stories that capture our attention are almost always about pain and suffering. The reliable father who fulfills every promise to take his children to the beach doesn’t make for compelling television. But we lean forward in our seats for the father whose broken promises leave a child waiting in swim trunks outside a pub—that’s the narrative that hooks us.
There is a power in stories. They evoke powerful emotions, reminding us what it means to be human. We feel immense compassion for the children in the story above. Abandonment. Shame. Feelings of less-than. We’re reminded of times within our own lives when we felt the same way. We’re reminded of the stories we tell ourselves.
But these stories are just that. Stories. They don’t exist anywhere else other than our minds. There may be some element of our historical experience contained within the story. But the story itself and whatever happened or did not happen are separate from who we are. It might not even be true. Chances are, it’s not. As a child, you’re not aware enough to reliably recognize the truth from the fiction. As a child, because of the emotions triggered, even the fiction can feel like truth, especially when told by parents and leaders and other adults. When told a fiction, a child may think, “I know this is not true, but there must be some part of this story that is true, or otherwise they wouldn’t tell it to me.” And of course, those doing the telling probably meant well, but more often than not they believed the fiction themselves.
One of the stories I heard growing up was that one of my uncles felt too uncomfortable coming to our house because we were too poor. Whether this is true or not, I can’t say; I wasn’t there. I wasn’t present when the words were spoken. But hearing the story repeated by my mother, and suddenly there’s this divide between our families—the chasm of us and them. I can’t speak to his motives or the accuracy of the account—only to the way the story shaped me. The story—“we are not good enough”—to a child becomes I am not good enough. These stories are the most damaging, because they have no basis in reality or truth, yet the emotions that accompany them are so powerful that they can overshadow any rational thought, and if enough people say or believe or act like it, you can find yourself boxed into an identity you didn’t ask for, that isn’t even true, but you start to believe it because everyone around you reinforces the story. Stories about being. Just your existence—being poor, being whatever—and to a child, what can you do about that? So you start to look for ways to change your circumstances. And for that, you need the future.
And of course, it’s important to note that comparison of yourself to others—whether you invited the comparison or it was forced upon you—becomes the ego reinforcing itself into an identity. The ego doesn’t care if it’s positive or negative. I’m worse than you is equally as powerful an identity as I’m better than you. Anything to anchor itself in a form of judgment. Yes, I am worse than. I don’t want to be. But that’s just where things are. And now I need the future to change it.
Not just me. I was raised in the generation of doing. I mean, isn’t that the American Dream after all? “Just do it.” Do well in school, do your duty, do a little more, because a little more is never enough. Do well enough and you could change your circumstances. Even one of my favorite church hymns growing up changed its words. It used to read “teach me all that I must know,” and this became “teach me all that I must do.” Doing—so caught up in it. And for that, we need the future, for it’s in the future we will arrive, having done whatever it is we set out to do. In this way, doing becomes closely tied to your identity.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with doing in and of itself. It’s wonderful to accomplish goals and achievements. I repeat. It’s okay to have goals and accomplish things. Should I say it again? But when your entire sense of self becomes wrapped up in the doing, it will never be enough. There will always be a little more to do to add to ‘me’. Doing is always on the horizon.
So you’re caught between the false stories about being and the never-ending cycle of doing that never arrives, never really understanding what’s real.
I think it’s been this way for generations.
My dad used to recite a poem to us growing up called “Little Orphant Annie” by James Whitcomb Riley. This was a scary Halloween-type poem about the goblins that would snatch up the little children who misbehaved. The ending of the poem goes like this:
An’ little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is blue,
An’ the lamp-wick sputters, an’ the wind goes zoo-oo,
An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray,
An’ the lightnin’-bugs is all fur away,—
You better mind yer parents, an’ yer teachers fond an’ dear,
An’ ’tend to them ’at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear;
An’ help the pore an’ needy ones ’at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns ’ll git you Ef you Don’t Watch Out!
I can’t say how many of us kids learned to recite this poem from memory, but it is one of my fonder memories of my father. We could all see how much he loved reciting these poems. But the message? You’d better do the right things… or else… goblins—or worse, cancel culture.
And if I had to characterize a theme for my generation, it would be the theme of doing. Nike captured it perfectly: “Just do it.” Do what is right. Even if that “doing” is “thinking” the right things. And we need the doing, because “being” in and of itself was never enough—because of the story. The damned story. It doesn’t start out this way. When a baby is born, parents love the child unconditionally. The child doesn’t have to “do” anything. But slowly, this changes as the child grows. It’s not a conscious decision. It just seems to happen. The parents, so caught up in “doing” themselves, teach the child all they must also “do.” Brush your teeth, do your homework, go to school, go to church, and on and on and on. But little is done in the way of sitting with the child, listening, and reinforcing that the child, just by being there, is enough. Ideally, parents would also teach their children not to believe in the story. But that requires a self-awareness many do not yet possess.