They can't keep up, and nor can we
Maybe stories can help?
I was born in the early 80’s.
The notion of going to school and getting good grades in preparation for joining the workforce was ingrained from a young age. As was the ever ominous threat that if you didn’t do well, your life would be over before it had even started.
This was what our parents, our teachers knew to be true.
And so we, too, believed it.
We unknowingly shaped our identities accordingly. I did anyway. Ever the ‘good girl’.
For a while, it worked. My good grades got me into a good university, which got me a good degree, which got me my first job, then my second, then third. I was Managing Director of a marketing agency by 32.
By 40; redundancy, new motherhood and a failed business later, my sense of self lay strewn in tatters on the floor.
The intel on which that identity had been built, was flawed.
Because what they, the grownups, could never know, was that the world had already begun to change beyond recognition. Our childhood and teenage years became a playground for technical innovation, and all that came with it:
Mobile phones.
The internet.
Chat rooms.
Global communities.
Individual platforms.
Opinions shared.
Voices heard.
Horizons broadened.
Trolls (not the neon haired ones).
New industries.
New career paths.
New remote ways of working.
New levels of ‘freedom’
New levels of inadequacy.
New ways to compare.
New pressures.
New dangers.
It’s why we live differently.
It’s why we parent differently.
Its why we do business differently.
There are undeniably incredible positives to this, many of the outdated cultural narratives around gender, race, religion, sexuality, are rightly being dismantled.
But we also exist in a world that’s just moving too damn quickly for new narratives to take hold. For the first time ever we’re living in a society without wide reaching, relevant, shared stories - there is no blueprint to guide us.
There are many reasons for this; economic, environmental, cultural. But what does it mean for us, as individuals? How do we navigate these lawless times, and still maintain a sense of self, even as our identities are wrenched from beneath us?
Often we look to organisations, brands, and public figures to educate and guide. From Patagonia to Taylor Swift, Choose Life to Brene Brown, there are seemingly endless sources of positive inspiration to be found, subjective though they are.
But there is a dark side to this too, you need not look further than the Andrew Tate’s of this world to recognise the impact of unchecked influence.
Many of us have been inspired to look within, our collective leaning toward spirituality is testament to this. But powerful as it is (and I do believe it to be), I wonder if there is a more collective solution?
In many ways, our generation is one huge social experiment.
But stories? They’re not.
I’d argue storytelling is the most powerful instrument of human evolution we’ve ever created. Earliest records date back thousands of years AD, they taught us which food to eat, how to hunt, to conduct ourselves.
There’s evidence that when we’re being told a story, our brain waves sync with those of the person telling it. Cortisol flows, grabbing our attention, Oxytocin enables us to empathise. And that Dopamine hit at the end! We want the protagonist to win; we want it for ourselves too.
To me, stories carry the lessons that can’t be taught, they must be experienced.
According to Christopher Booker, author of The Seven Basic Plots, there are only seven stories that have ever been told – each with different lesson to teach.
Rags to Riches tomes, for example, teach us that true wealth comes from within. Comedies show that yes, life is chaotic, but love, togetherness and forgiveness will bring harmony and joy. The Quest; that the journey is more important than the destination.
Across the globe, in civilisations past and present, these same stories have been unearthed.
Booker even argues that just like the human body (our physical expression) is near identical, our internal psyches are too, and stories are a representation of this.
Stories, then, represent the very nature of humanity.
And as we evolve now, in our own collective identity, we must turn to stories again.
But not any stories, our story, your story.
We’re amongst the first to live in this new world. The only generation to have spanned the before, and after.
We’re the first to collectively recognise our trauma, and do the work to break the cycle to ensure our children do not inherit it, while ourselves, healing. The first to truly try to understand our partners, and the invisible loads they too carry.
Ours are the first businesses to exist free of the restrictions of the traditional white collar 9-5, where the many are employed by the few, to properly prioritise people and planet over profit.
And I get that within the confines of the echo chambers in which we all reside that feels hard to grasp; everyone’s doing it right? (they’re not). But remember; 20 years, it wouldn’t even have been technologically possible.
In telling our stories, the win is twofold.
Firstly, telling your story requires that you know it. Sounds obvious. But is it? The 75+ female founders I worked with 121 and hundreds of workshop attendees I’ve taught this to, would say no. In fact they’d have said they have no stories to tell - but that’s an essay of its own.
A Sense Making exercise of its own, it requires you to delve into the life lessons, sliding-door decisions and fleeting, yet permanent-in-the-mark-they-made-moments that shaped who you are today.
Both confronting and liberating; there is power in knowing your story, what’s made you who you are, and wielding the conviction to tell it.
But perhaps more so, there is magic when you share it.
Other people’s stories whisper of possibility. The lessons they’ve learned help us make sense of our own lives, revealing paths to us not yet travelled, yet full of promise, and invite us to walk it.
If Sense Making our own identity, in a society that has lost its own is the goal, I think the stories of others who’ve walked the path just a few steps ahead, are a good place to start.
And that most definitely includes yours.