The Stories We Choose

These past four years I have thought about "the stories we choose to live within" in the way that most people eat, drink, and work. We do those things because we must. With a nod to Maslow's "hierachy of needs" and an acknowledgement that I would not be able to indulge this incredible drive within me to ponder the whys and hows of life if I lived within the circumstances of millions of other lives, I find it hard to recall a time when I did NOT ponder the whys and hows and almost impossible to put myself in the skin of a person who lives an unexamined life.

My extensive exercise and use of intuitive intelligence has engaged, enriched and challenged many people in my life -so much so that I suspect the nazis of reason would point to that as the cause of my "faith crisis", the first step on my "slippery slope". But as always, I would disagree.

For me, the far greater "trouble", has come from the exercise of my reasoning intelligence, the reading and thinking outside the expected/acceptable boxes that has been an ongoing dance in my life.

I continue to ponder:

• How all of us humans - billions around the globe - live our lives within widely differing stories - foundations, frameworks and filters of cultural and familial beliefs, expectations and boundaries
• How those foundations, frameworks and filters are driven and shaped by our relationships, our circumstances of need or provision, safety or danger, and our need for meaning and the answering of the "why?" and "how?" questions
• How many, if not most of the people who have walked this earth have lived their entire lives without ever consciously examining how the particular cultural story they've lived within has shaped their perception of truth,
• How people live their lives unaware that they have "chosen" to stay within their known and comfortable story
• What makes people change? What drives them to step outside their story?
• How dangerous and enriching it can be to "life as you have always known it" to embrace the examination process.

The photo above was taken at Ko Olina, Island of Oahu, Hawaii