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Life Story
The Value of Telling/Sharing one’s life story
A story comes in a repetitive form. What does this imply? Simple the message within a story is passed along repeatedly within one’s mind or to others, creating a strong image regarding the author/narrator’s intentions to the readers/listeners. Each author employs a unique way of telling out his/her life story. In most instances, a story defines the narrator’s real-life experiences. Such experiences provide lessons to the listeners/readers of the narrative. Within this essay, discussing the value of sharing/telling one’s life story will provide paying close attention to Adichie Chimamanda and Julie Beck’s experiences, as expressed in their narrations. Since life stories are part of us, one can confirm that each life story defines one’s experiences significantly to the sole individual.
Sharing life stories enhances a better understanding of life. One becomes aware of the different experiences that make up other people’s life stories, enabling people to appreciate themselves and others. Having interviewed with one of my best friend, Davis Joe, I realized that what I thought as a challenging experience in my life was nothing compared to my friends’ experiences. Joe’s narration refreshed my memory on the dangers of a single story as his reasoning revolved around a single stereotype. Through Joe’s narration, it became open that the whites associated his childhood with segregation/discrimination, having been an immigrates. Society neither accepted Joe nor his parents, which made Joe’s life a living hell during his childhood. Such experiences laid a strong foundation of Joe’s attitude towards the whites having been a Red Indian, thus developing a stereotype that helps him define all whites.
Considering Adichie Chimamanda’s experiences, one can ascertain that life hardships should strengthen the victim and not vice-versa. Having been black in the middle of whites did not hinder Adichie from achieving her dream goals and proving to the world that humans are equal and capable of achieving whatever they aspire regardless of their color. In her Ted Talk on “The Danger of a Single Story,” Adichie argues that “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with the stereotype is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story” (Adichie). It is quite unfortunate that stereotypes only focus on the negativities. When a story become the only story while defining a particular person, the stereotype tends to incorporate the entire community in the definition. Such an approach hinders a person from understanding others outside the bracket of the single story. Arguing from the single story’s point of view, one can ascertain that Joe lacks the proper understanding of the whites, which makes him view all of them as inhuman and inconsiderate. For Joe, childhood experiences have hindered him from understanding that humans are different; thus, one individual or one family’s actions towards the other should not define the entire community. The beauty of rejecting a single-story unveils the curtain of happy and harmonious living with all as ones worth in this life becomes well defined.
In Julie Beck’s article “Life’s Stories,” it becomes evident that one’s life experiences develop a strong foundation of the life story episodes. Based on Julie, life is a journey that takes gradual steps. In short, life stories make us who we are in the long run as the experiences become defined in a narration. She argues that “When people tell others about themselves, they have to do it narratively—that’s how humans communicate. But when people think about their lives to themselves, is it always in a narrative way, with a plot that leads from one point to another” (Beck, 1). Arguing from such a point of view, one can confirm that life stories are essential in defining a person. Excellent knowledge becomes achievable upon sharing personal experiences as one learns from the other and make amendments if need be. It is quite interesting to acknowledge the value that people hold for their personal experiences. Some go the extra mile and compile them in diaries for reference and more comfortable sharing in the future. Kate McLean, an associate professor of psychology at Western Washington University, argues that “Some people write in their diaries and are very introspective, and some are not at all.” Such sentiments are a clear indication that life stories are significant in defining who we are; thus, sharing them might be of great relevance in developing a different perception of the same experience to others.
In explaining the values of sharing a life story, Beck (2) insists that since life experiences do not happen once but gradually, the need to understand each experience’s lessons is the key to understanding oneself and others. Joe’s experiences ought to have laid a strong foundation of self-love/acceptance, enhancing his potentials of living amongst people of different races, social class, color, and culture, among other identifiers. The fact that Joe has shared his life experiences and received responses should help him move on and change his single-story into a broad narration that would allow him to change his perception towards the entire community of whites. Sharing life story enhances the realization of self-acceptance; thus, Joe can now understand his purpose in life.
Beck, Julie. “Life’s Stories.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 10 Aug. 2015. Web. 22
Sept. 2016.
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story. TED, 2009.
Joe, Davis. “Davis Joes Life Story.” Personal Interview. 23 Sept 2020