The Four Minute Story:

Recently I have discovered through a roundabout way the Moth website, which is essentially a story telling platform. Now, I know I have said this before, but I love stories of all kinds (The New Yorker, This American Life, etc.). People are just so creative and each story inspires more creativity, which leads to more stories. I especially love to hear the real-life stories on the Moth because even real stories told by actual people are told in a way that is both humorous and creative. There is one story specifically that comes to mind by Ed Gavagan. He is a New Yorker that experiences a stabbing, but somehow turns the event into an amusing learning experience. Basically, Ed is able to see the silver lining during a horrific event that seems to get worse and worse as the story goes on. I have been thinking a great deal about stories such as this one. We all have our "story" that defines us, while everyone around us has their own story. All of these stories are going on 24/7 with millions of people all over the world and their stories are intricately intertwined with the people around them until they all eventually lead back to us.

Last night I had the first class of Foundations of Counseling where we (the class) sat in the dark for a period of time where we were expected to meditate. First of all, this was a little surreal because I couldn't help but think about how the graduate classes in the Physics or Information Technology department probably don't find themselves using valuable lecture time sitting in the dark in silence. With that said, even in the dark while everyone was quiet, you could almost hear the noise of our minds chatting away. Now I have some experience with meditation because it has played a big role in my ability to fall asleep at night, but this felt strange. I think it was the nerves, but also hearing people talk about their experience meditating in a class was a little weird. One part of the exercise was to "locate our inner counselor" and to "anchor" that counselor. One girl said that she was having a hard time anchoring her counselor because "It was moving around" so she felt frustrated. What does that even mean? It made me think I was doing something wrong because I wasn't being so literal in my inner-exploration. I guess sometimes it just seems a little "out there" to me. All in all, the experience was truly relaxing and without a doubt it was a learning experience.

After this period of meditation, we were paired in two's and told to tell our "story" for four minutes, but the catch is that one person had to be silent. I had no idea how long four minutes was until I had to talk about my life story for four minutes. I also had a hard time being silent while someone else told their story for four minutes because, culturally, it seemed rude to not respond. I was not the only one who felt this way though. I think we all felt the same. I know, we should be able to draw a life story out for four minutes, but we were with strangers and so this is when I figured out that we all have two versions of our life story. We have the long version and the short version. We have the "I don't want to get too involved" version and the "lay it all out there" version.

So for a class of strangers, I believe we all gave the short version, which is sad because I find everyone's story to be so fascinating. I think we could all get up on the stage at the Moth and tell a really interesting story about ourselves that would catch people off guard. I mean, no, we haven't all been stabbed and left for dead with two collapsed lungs, but we are all so different and incredible in our own unique way. I think we should be proud of that, but instead we are all a little timid because we think others don't care. I wish we could all just "lay it out there" for everyone to hear. Then maybe we would all realize how much we have in common?