Whitney Houston and our own Narrative thinking

Unless, you’ve been secluded from society this weekend, you learned that Whitney Houston died this weekend. I don’t know why and to be honest, I’m ok not knowing. This post really isn’t about Whitney.

Have you ever had someone force a plot on you that you didn’t feel was fair? They assigned motives to your actions that weren’t what was really going through your brain?

Have you ever done that to someone else? We use Narrative thinking to make sense of the world around us. This is necessary and good but sometimes we apply narratives to others that aren’t actual, even if they work. This stems from the complexity that is the human experience. People are complicated.

On top of that we tend to apply a narrative to life that doesn’t really work. We think that happiness is “out there.” Wherever out there is at, we believe if we get there we’ll find happiness. So when someone who made it to the “out there” in our mind we can’t believe that they would waste it with drugs, and alcohol. We can’t believe that they wouldn’t be happy when they have what we are convinced would make us happy.

If we were rich and famous and had thousands of fans, we’d be happy. If we were an athlete, or a music star we’d be happy. The reason we’re not happy is because we’re stuck in a bad job or bad marriage, or we’re not rich enough. If we just had what they had.

Never mind the fact that we have example after example that tells us this narrative is incorrect. Never mind that almost all of the stories (narratives) that we can see tell us the exact opposite. We need to make peace with the fact that by and large we choose our own happiness. We often cannot choose our circumstances but we can and must choose our reactions.

I don’t know what inner demons Ms Houston fought. I am sorry for her family, and loved ones who lost someone too soon.

I hope that everyone who ponders her life and death will consider what they believe about their own narrative. I hope that we will all realize that we choose how we react in every situation and that we can choose happiness. We can make peace with our past and our present.