The Power of Narratives

What we believe can change the way we see reality.

What is a narrative?

All of us try to understand the world.

To do that, we organize events, experiences, information and memories into stories that give meaning to what we live.

Those stories are narratives.

They can come from family, religion, politics, culture and our personal experiences.

Narratives are not necessarily false. Many contain important truths. Others mix facts, interpretations, desires and mistakes.

The problem is not simply in having a narrative.

It lies in not noticing the power it holds over us.

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When the narrative governs reason

We tend to imagine that we first examine the facts and then reach our conclusions.

But it does not always happen that way.

Many times, we are already convinced of something before examining the facts. Then our reason starts working to defend what we believe.

We begin to value the information that confirms our convictions and to distrust the information that contradicts them.

We can see what does not exist and fail to see what is right in front of us.

And the more sincerely we believe we are right, the harder it can be to notice the mistake.

This happens to educated and simple people, religious and non-religious, conservative and progressive.

It happens to me too.

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When we stop seeing the other person

Narratives do not influence only what we think.

They can also influence our feelings.

We can learn to admire someone we have never met. And we can learn to hate someone we have never talked to.

A person can be generous, affectionate and merciful with their family and, at the same time, consider justified the suffering of those they have learned to call enemies.

The narrative can set boundaries for our compassion.

The other person stops being a person and comes to represent a threat, an ideology, a group.

And so we can come to believe we are doing good precisely when we cause suffering.

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What I would like it to be

There is another important aspect.

We do not always want to know reality as it is.

Many times, we want it to match our expectations.

We want a certain person to be right, our religion to have no mistakes, our choices to have been correct, events to confirm what we believe.

When the facts contradict these desires, we may resist acknowledging them.

But reality does not change simply because we wish it were different.

Acknowledging reality does not mean liking it.

We can acknowledge an injustice and work to correct it. We can acknowledge suffering and try to relieve it.

What we cannot do is turn our desires into facts.

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The person who is and the person I would like them to be

Many conflicts between people who are close to each other come from a very simple difference: what the other person is and what we would like them to be.

We expect our spouse to think like us, our friends to have our priorities, people to act the way we consider right.

When that does not happen, we become frustrated.

But there is something even more delicate: we also build narratives about the people we love.

Sometimes, a single attitude turns into an entire story:

“He never listens to me.”

“She always wants to be right.”

“My friend doesn't care about me.”

Once formed, this narrative can influence the way we interpret each new behavior of the other. We begin to find confirmations of what we already believed.

So, many times, we do not argue only because of what happened. We also argue with the story we built about that person.

And the real person may be very different from the image we formed of them.

Accepting someone as they are does not mean approving of everything they do. It means acknowledging the real person, instead of demanding that they match our expectations.

We can talk, disagree, set boundaries and even step away when necessary, without turning our differences into hostility.

Perhaps many arguments would lose their reason to exist if we could tell apart what the other person really did from what we have come to believe about them.

And, before trying to change someone, we could ask ourselves:

Am I seeing this person as they are, or as the narrative I built makes me see them?

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Loving is not the same as liking

There is an important difference between liking and loving.

Liking involves our feelings, our affinities and preferences.

Loving can begin before that.

We can decide to act with kindness toward someone we do not like.

We can disagree with their ideas, disapprove of their actions and still wish them well.

When Jesus said “Love your enemies”, he presented an attitude that does not depend on sympathy.

Love does not require that we stop recognizing evil.

It requires that we not stop recognizing the person.

Perhaps this is one way of keeping our narratives from determining the limits of our mercy.

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Acknowledging without understanding everything

There are events that deeply contradict our expectations.

We can suffer, lament, question and not find explanations.

Job lost his possessions, his children and his health. He did not understand everything that was happening. He suffered, protested and asked questions.

But, faced with the loss, he also said:

“The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Acknowledging reality does not mean approving of everything that happens.

And trusting in God does not mean having an explanation for everything.

Perhaps rest begins when we stop demanding that reality match our will, so that we can live, love and worship.

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And what about my own narratives?

It is easy to recognize the power of narratives over those we disagree with.

It is much harder to recognize that same power over ourselves.

So, before asking why someone believes a certain thing, we can examine our own convictions:

Am I acknowledging the facts or trying to confirm what I want to believe?

Can I listen to someone who disagrees with me without turning them into an enemy?

Am I willing to change my understanding when I realize I was mistaken?

Is my way of thinking expanding or shrinking my capacity to love?

These questions do not guarantee that we will be right.

But they can help us recognize our limitations.

And perhaps this is one of the first manifestations of wisdom: understanding that we too can be mistaken.

Paul came to recognize a deep contradiction in himself: he did not do the good he wanted, but practiced the evil he did not want.

Recognizing the good does not mean we are already able to practice it.

Perhaps that is why it is so important to examine our own attitudes before judging the attitudes of others.

We do not need to be right about everything to act with love.

I write these words not because I am free from the influence of narratives, but because I recognize how much they can also influence my way of thinking, feeling and acting.

I do not wish to find the mistakes of others.

I wish to learn to recognize my own, so that I may see reality better and love with more freedom.