Therapists hear stories. Tons of them.

Everyone has one.

The most significant stories represent the essential narrative of a person’s life. You could have just one story that expresses how you see yourself and your journey through time.

It may not even take the form of a specific tale or recollection. Instead, in a paragraph, you might explain how your life has progressed and who you are.

Perhaps you think you are lucky or unlucky. Maybe you see yourself as a “mover and a shaker.”  Do you imagine a handsome and suave (or beautiful and charming) soul as you look in the mirror? Or someone lazy or hardworking or resilient or weak or God-fearing?

But even if there is no yarn attached to the qualities you ascribe to yourself, the character traits you claim are still central to how you see yourself, something you refer to in quiet contemplation.

Nor does the story or characteristic have to be true. It just has to be something that you believe is true.

An example. An old acquaintance thought of himself as a lady’s man, making such politically incorrect comments as this simile: “A woman is like a bus — if you miss this one, there will be another one along in 10 minutes.”

He was clever, energetic, engaging, and outgoing but unremarkable in his level of success and appearance — not particularly tactful either. But when a woman rejected him, he was usually undaunted.

This gentleman even had a theme song of sorts. It was the soaring horn call from the Richard Strauss orchestral tone poem “Don Juan,” representing the bold, dashing title character he believed himself to be. And so, ever on the lookout for attractive women, he did, in fact, have numerous love affairs. Many ended badly, and he was as often rejected as adored.

Another person, no less likable or successful with the opposite sex, might have seen the identical romantic life as disappointing. But our “Don Juan” was rarely chagrined for long and continued to pursue women with vigor.

You might say that our hero had little self-awareness. But, the case can be made that he was more satisfied in living out his romantic life through his chosen vision of himself — through the story he told himself about himself — than if he had defined his role differently. 

He could have devised an alternate narrative, including that of the often jilted, luckless lover.

I am not promoting this man’s approach to women or his less-than-realistic view of himself. That’s not the point.

Instead, his view gave him much romance, happiness, and excitement. In other words, he would have said it worked.

Unlike our friend, I have seen people change their stories over a lifetime. For example, from feeling unlucky to feeling lucky, timid to bold, or mistake-prone to capable.

It is worth asking ourselves what stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Again, they might not stand up to external scrutiny, but they don’t necessarily have to.

We frequently create self-fulfilling prophecies, succeeding or failing because of what we believe will happen or who we believe we are.

The man in question had a lot of romance because he believed many women would find him worth their time. Had he seen himself as a schlemiel, he would have had much less female companionship.

Was his glass half-full or half-empty? That, too, is part of his story, and he certainly looked at life with a hopeful, optimistic gaze and focused on what was best in himself, not his weaknesses.

The person I’ve described had many friends and much pleasure, not only of an amorous variety. He led an active, adventurous life and didn’t hold grudges. Even if his approach to living is not one you would personally choose, do not be too hasty to judge it (especially after I tell you that he is a loving father).

A great man?

No, but then, there aren’t too many of those.

But he found a story that served to achieve fulfillment.

Many of us do worse.

========

The top image is Don Juan and the Statue of the Commander by Alexandre-Evariste Fragonard, oil on canvas, circa 1830 – 835.

The photo below is Portrait of a Young Boy Looking in a Mirror, by A.M. Rothchild and Co., and provided by pellethepoet. Both of the pictures were sourced from Wikimedia Commons.