I’ve always seen life in terms of stories. I used to tell stories to myself from age 5 or so, and probably earlier–definitely before I could write, because my mom used to record them on tape. The most common thing I’ll do when I’m bored is create mini-story scenarios in my head, involving myself and people I know, and dramatic events taking place, and how people react. (Like “myself and the rest of my swim team are stranded on a desert island” or, years later, “I’m trapped at work in the hospital with the rest of the staff after a nuclear strike”.)
I’ve always been an avid reader, and looked up to the main characters with heroic qualities, and been all too aware that I don’t have those qualities–I’m clumsy, I have slow reaction times, I don’t cope well under pressure, etc. I think the biggest bias that “narrative thinking” has given me is the thought that you, as a person, are defined by that “climactic moment of your story” where you’re in the position to do something heroic. Thus, I think my literally greatest fear is that my climactic moment will come, and I’ll fail due to lack of heroic qualities.
This has motivated quite a lot of my large-scale life decisions–I chose to go into nursing, among other reasons, because I thought it would improve my ability to actually be useful in a crisis situation. (I’m not saying it was a wrong decision–I think it was an even better decision than I realized at the time, if not for the same reasons.) Still, there are definitely drawbacks to seeing the world in such a biased way. And though my intellectual self may be more sophisticated than that now, my emotional self definitely still thinks that way–and has a way to see every situation as “the author of my story is testing my skills.”
More recently, I’ve tried to incorporate “tsuyoku naritai” into my self-concept, to see myself as the kind of person who is constantly working to become stronger. This helps a lot to persuade my reluctant emotional mind to do all the things that I find unpleasant or that scare me, like dragging myself to taekwondo at the end of a long day, or going to help out when a patient is in cardiac arrest.
An injury that prevented me from climbing this semester lead to me feeling chronically meh for about a month, until I realized it was because my self-image as a physically active and playful person was threatened.
This could be a purely physiological thing. Exercise releases endorphins, and if your body’s used to getting its daily endorphin boost and suddenly isn’t anymore, it isn’t all that surprising that you would feel “meh.” Quite apart from the psychological aspects–which are huge as well–you can suffer purely physical “withdrawal” from lack of exercise. I certainly do!
Excellent article!
I’ve always seen life in terms of stories. I used to tell stories to myself from age 5 or so, and probably earlier–definitely before I could write, because my mom used to record them on tape. The most common thing I’ll do when I’m bored is create mini-story scenarios in my head, involving myself and people I know, and dramatic events taking place, and how people react. (Like “myself and the rest of my swim team are stranded on a desert island” or, years later, “I’m trapped at work in the hospital with the rest of the staff after a nuclear strike”.)
I’ve always been an avid reader, and looked up to the main characters with heroic qualities, and been all too aware that I don’t have those qualities–I’m clumsy, I have slow reaction times, I don’t cope well under pressure, etc. I think the biggest bias that “narrative thinking” has given me is the thought that you, as a person, are defined by that “climactic moment of your story” where you’re in the position to do something heroic. Thus, I think my literally greatest fear is that my climactic moment will come, and I’ll fail due to lack of heroic qualities.
This has motivated quite a lot of my large-scale life decisions–I chose to go into nursing, among other reasons, because I thought it would improve my ability to actually be useful in a crisis situation. (I’m not saying it was a wrong decision–I think it was an even better decision than I realized at the time, if not for the same reasons.) Still, there are definitely drawbacks to seeing the world in such a biased way. And though my intellectual self may be more sophisticated than that now, my emotional self definitely still thinks that way–and has a way to see every situation as “the author of my story is testing my skills.”
More recently, I’ve tried to incorporate “tsuyoku naritai” into my self-concept, to see myself as the kind of person who is constantly working to become stronger. This helps a lot to persuade my reluctant emotional mind to do all the things that I find unpleasant or that scare me, like dragging myself to taekwondo at the end of a long day, or going to help out when a patient is in cardiac arrest.
This could be a purely physiological thing. Exercise releases endorphins, and if your body’s used to getting its daily endorphin boost and suddenly isn’t anymore, it isn’t all that surprising that you would feel “meh.” Quite apart from the psychological aspects–which are huge as well–you can suffer purely physical “withdrawal” from lack of exercise. I certainly do!