Those are the moments when I know that it’s time to tell myself a story so I can understand my behavior and solve the complex problem of my personal history. The solutions often make for great stories and provide us with opportunities to more fully understand ourselves. To make meaning out of who we are from the stories we have lived.

stories are “the smallest unit of time travel” because stories are what allows you to go from one point in time to another. Stories are what you hold onto in our universe. Stories are also the first thing we create, and storymaking becomes a skill that people learn in our travels.

It is the story we recreate and live out for ourselves every day that not only defines our past but also defines us, and stories are things we can change. The first step is to seek a perspective that allows us to see the story for what it is.

There is a presumption in thinking that we entirely invent our stories. Rather it could be said that the stories come through us, assemble themselves out of the elements of our lives and imagination. We receive and shape them. We cannot be said to originate them. All true storytellers are modest.

People are made of stories. Our memories are not the impartial accumulation of every second we’ve lived; they’re the narrative that we assembled out of selected moments.