The Absolute Worst Story We Tell Ourselves
We all love stories. Origin stories abound in all cultures.
Religion is storytelling.
Relationships are storytelling.
Governments are storytelling.
Movies, music, art… all storytelling based.
Fame is a result of storytelling — as is failure — and worse.
We tell ourselves stories all the time. Our identity is one big story broken into smaller stories that play in our minds constantly.
There are marvelous stories.
There are good stories and mediocre stories.
There are interesting, uninteresting, boring, fascinating, inspirational, and depressing stories.
What we choose from the vast library of stories in our mind is a choice.
“Hello, brain.”
“Hello yourself, handsome.”
“I need a story for the interview coming up.”
“Gotcha. How about the one where you delivered incredible images under terrible circumstances mixed in with that confident story and a bit of the tale of great personalities we used last month?’
“Let’s do it, brain.”
“On it…”
But even though we have many strong stories to draw on, we have a whole subset of negative and really rotten stories that live on far too long.
I promised the worst story ever… here it is:
The way the worst stories we tell ourselves start out is “Why I Can’t…”
The runner-up worst story begins with only “I Can’t…”, but clearly the vilest, most destructive, and devastatingly insidious story is the one where we try to EXPLAIN reasons for us not to be able to… whatever it is we are wanting to do.
The destruction starts with “Why”. We use the word to justify our base assertion that we cannot do something. And we want others to buy into it because of our rational and focused “reasons”.
And of course occasionally the “Why I Can’t” story is valid.
Why I Can’t be an Astronaut may be due to my age or physical condition.
Why I Can’t play the tuba is because I never learned. (However, nothing stops me from learning now.)
Why I Can’t go back in time and play drums for Miles Davis is because of that whole time-travel thing and perhaps because I may not have ever been as good as Tony Williams…just sayin’…
But for the vast majority of “Why I Can’t” stories, the reasons are pure bullshit.
Bull. Shit.
“Why” is a justification word that is used to validate the bullshit reasons that follow.
Like many things we see being validated, the validation may be bullshit as well.
You cannot validate a lie with a lie. Or even something made up of whole cloth. Fake statistics are of no use really, and you know that.
(Politicians, please take note… oh, never mind.)
The “Why” words we use are most often based on assumptions of failure where no attempt has been made. No data collected. No empircal evidence in sight. We make it up and say that it is true because we say it is.
Yes, if I were asked to play the Tuba I would fail (today). But the reasons are valid and measurable. I have not picked up a Tuba since College when I was getting my degree in music. And that was a long, long time ago.
But if I were asked to write a novel, what would be my “Why I Can’t” story there?
Time?
Shut up. You have time. You’re reading this on the interwebs.
Ideas?
C’mon. Write about something you know with fake names.
Typing skills?
Really… we’re going there?
The truth is there is absolutely nothing stopping you from writing a novel.
Nothing.
Except that “Why I Can’t” story you keep bringing up like a bad penny or last night’s slightly undercooked clams.
I see it so much in artists and creative types. The reasons they give seem so strong to them but crumble under even the slightest scrutiny.
“I don’t have time.”
The reality is that you do have time, you just prioritize that time in such a way that the creative is left out.
“I don’t know what to do.”
Yes, you do. You know a couple of dozen things that you could do to get out of a funk. And if you really are dry, there are eleventyhundred articles on the interwebs to help get you unstuck.
“I don’t have a ____, or my ____ is too old for this thing I want to do.
Rarely is that the case… and if it is, FIND A WAY around the problem.
Creative people are problem solvers and if you cannot figure out how to get your hands on something you need for even a day or so, you are not trying… you are feeding the “Why I Can’t” story more fodder… more manure for the brain.
Perhaps you chose that idea that you cannot do because of whatever BS story you are telling yourself in order to justify not doing something and providing an easy win for the “Why I Can’t” crap that has infected your frontal lobes.
“I’m too old” is really BS.
You are never “too old”. In fact, the idea that someone is “too old” is totally blown up by science. You are the age you are. That is simply a fact that cannot be refuted. Years, months, days… all measurable, all accounted for.
So the idea of being “too” old is bullshit. You are as old as you were meant to be the day you were born. Not a day older.
And at the end of today, you will be 24 hours older — just like every other living being on this planet.
Age means experience.
The “10,000-hour rule” means that people in middle and older ages have already put in 6000–8000 hours getting to where they are.
And that is worth more than you may think.
It’s time to put the “Why I Can’t” story out to pasture.
Yes, be aware of the challenges that may be in front of you, and be practical in ways to overcome them. Be particularly aware that the insidious “Why” may be lurking in the solutions you disparage because that story does NOT want to go away.
I love people who want to change their lives when they get into their 50’s and 60’s. But so often they have to overcome that “Why I Can’t” story of age, or time, or responsibilities, or blah blah blah… NONE of them are real restrictions. You CAN do many things when you get older. And many times you can do it better than younger folks.
Don’t let the worst story ever told hold you back… ever. From anything you would ever want to do.
My Solution:
Whenever you start a sentence with “Why I Can’t” or some variable of that same awful phrase, take a moment to examine each and every “reason” to find out if that is really true, or if you have put your own spin on it to validate the premise that you can’t do it.
It works when you have the facts, even though your own brain may fight you along the way.
Give it a shot… you have nothing to lose.
I gotta get my hands on a Tuba.
