Alternative Stories

As I go through my day, I tell myself alter­na­tive sto­ries. My imme­di­ate life is much like yours. It con­sists of work, peo­ple, and liv­ing in a cer­tain com­mu­nity. The rou­tine images and actions are learned pretty quickly. The days begin to run together and all look the same — except inside. Within the unseen mind are thou­sands of sto­ries — some large and many small. They play almost con­stantly in the back of your head. Day­dream­ing is when one of those sto­ries steps to the front and takes you away from where you are to another place and time. If you take the time to kick back from your job a minute and pur­sue one of the alter­na­tive sto­ries, you can receive a great gift. It is more than the gift of mere mem­ory. You are being blessed with another way of look­ing at where you are right now.

Some­times I won­der what Napoleon would do in my life. The same ques­tion is posed for a thou­sand other char­ac­ters as well — each offer­ing a dif­fer­ent sce­nario. Sto­ries are won­der­ful lit­tle con­structs of the mind, and they also serve as the fun­da­men­tal unit of per­ceived real­ity. Try say­ing some­thing mean­ing­ful with­out it becom­ing a story. I will bet that you can­not do it. Life is not by for­mula but by lit­tle blocks of inter­changes and events that form building-block sto­ries. From those sto­ries we glean a lit­tle bit of amuse­ment and often a lot of wis­dom. If you can really get into them, they can be therapeutic.

On most days I dress the same and fol­low a basic rou­tine — as you do too. The tasks we face are pretty well out­lined by our every­day demands. What makes it all dif­fer­ent has to do with the sto­ries within that shine a kalei­do­scope of light and reflec­tion on these mun­dane activ­i­ties. Some­times I will go through the day with some really major novel in the back of my mind as the alter­na­tive story; some­times it is a key scene from child­hood. We humans really are always in at least two places at once: what we see in front of our eyes and what we see inside of our heads.

As time goes by, you will notice that the sto­ries inside begin to out­weigh the sto­ries out­side. Who we have become has more to do with the sto­ries we have cho­sen to col­lect than the tasks we have attempted to accom­plish. Time spent with your pet may reg­is­ter as more con­sol­ing than time spent with your fam­ily. We do not seem to be able to con­trol all of how the mind cat­e­go­rizes the impor­tance of an event.

Choose a great alter­na­tive story today and see if you do not feel bet­ter and get more done. You are more than where you are in life right now. You are the teller of great alter­na­tive sto­ries. Enjoy them. They are a unique gift to you alone; rest in them. Gather them around you like a child does stuffed ani­mals. They can con­sole and inspire at the same time.