Everyone Has a Story and . . . Everyone Is a Storyteller

If you have been with me for a while, you know I am a lover of words and stories. I read them. I write them. I love them.

When I taught middle school (that delightfully awkward age around 13), my daily challenge focused on convincing a bored and often reluctant crowd to write. I didn’t demand an entire book or even multiple double-spaced pages. All I begged for was a paragraph, a brief story under 300 words.

I can tell you. They resisted!

“But Miss, I can’t write a story.”

“This $%&!”

[Note: I declared my classroom a G-Rated zone, so they uttered various levels of expletives silently or in hushed whispers. Despite that disheartening reality, I also had a few eager souls just like me!]

I never gave up experimenting, creating word walls, bribing them with chocolate, and sometimes, I simply listened.

One day, after all my cajoling and clever antics failed, I happened upon something different. I pulled one especially obstinate child aside, sat at the computer, looked her in the eye, and said, “Talk to me. Tell me something strange or funny that you remember.”

Silent stare.

I waited. I’m good at waiting.

Slowly, haltingly, words tumbled into the room. I caught them, and sent them onto the page. Before the gangly adolescent knew what occurred, a story unfolded—her story.

“It doesn’t have to be good. It just has to exist.”
—Austin Kleon

What I learned from those years and from my courageous students is that we all have stories hidden inside. We are all storytellers.

You may not consider yourself a writer, but I know this: you are human. Humans’ unique gift and what makes them different is that we tell stories.

I have treasures in my files and on my desk. Notes from past students, friends, the people I hold dear, tell a story. Those words on paper remind me of birthdays, secrets, and longings.

Never underestimate the power of written or spoken words. They leave a trail. Those messages, letters, journals, or scraps of paper hold together the story of where we have been, of who we are, and what we can become.

Today’s challenge: share a story. Bonus points if you write it down so a future generation can find it—and you.

Everyone has a story

“Story makes us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving. Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith, faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matter cosmically.”
—Madeleine L’Engle