I have been consistently suspicious of the narratives I’ve created about my life.
Not that they are lies or spins, but they are stories.
We all create stories about ourselves to share with the world throughout our lives.
But behind every story is a truer fact that may be covering up something far more insightful about ourselves.
So I say, keep pushing for the greater story.
Here’s one for the ages:
. . . . Recently I had a terrible bout of the “flu.” It had me in a coughing fit for about two weeks.
One night I coughed so hard it woke me up. I went searching for some cough medicine in the bathroom. As I threw off the blankets and put my feet on the floor ( we have a bed which is high off the ground) I lost my balance and fell forward cracking my nose on the base of the bed. I lost consciousness for a few seconds, and when I woke up, I was face down in a pool of blood. . . .So,
I spent the greater part of the morning trying unsuccessfully to remove the blood stain. The rug was ruined.
That afternoon I sat up in my bed staring down at the large area of drying blood. My first thought was that it looked like a mob hit. My second one was, “It seems like I’ve had my share of pneumonia during my life. Could I possibly have a chronic condition?”.
The potential insight surprised me, maybe even shocked me. I have framed much of my life’s experiences around the effects polio has had on me. But, bouts of viral and bacterial pneumonia may have had even more dramatic effects on my personal and professional life. For example, I almost died of viral pneumonia while I was staying at the Athletic Club in New York City while consulting for a group of radio stations when I was forty one years old. Gradually I recovered but It took me over a year to get my normal speaking voice back. Not good for a guy who makes his living speaking publicly to business groups.
Plus, I never met my biological father, but tragically he died when he was forty eight years old of wouldn’t you know it – pneumonia. His challenge was, he was a heavy smoker and drinker when he was line foreman for the Studebaker automobile plant in south Los Angeles where they had started making military jeeps during WW2.
He had worked himself up from being a car painter at the same plant. During that time there were high concentrations of lead in the paint. Lead is now banned in auto paint, because of its toxic impact on the respiratory system of people coming in contact with it.
What do I do with this new insight? I don’t know yet. But, like I said, keep pushing to get the story straight about yourself. The benefit is self evident, it leads to greater self understanding. Remember: we’re all a puzzle whose parts we have the possibility of putting together. We push until we get it right. Then we continue to create the ongoing narrative about ourselves that conforms more and more to the facts on the ground.