“I’ve long known that such stories are our best medium for forging connections with our fellow human beings. They help span the breach of solipsism to unify the human experience.
We’ve been telling our stories since we could carve on cave walls, and probably longer. Stories are the roadmaps of our lives, and we’re hard-wired for telling them. […]
Yet two years ago, when I decided to write a book about a career spent helping people tell their stories, I had absolutely no intention of sharing my own. I’d never told it to my readers, or even my employers.
Yes, shame was a factor. Who wants to admit he’d sunk so low as to beg for change and sleep on benches? But it was also the nihilism of my 20s that I wanted to keep buried, that part of my life that felt more like an archeological dig than a personal story. Who was that person?
And I knew enough to understand that writing autobiographically can be like performing surgery on yourself without anesthesia.”
Editor’s Note: Edward Grinnan is editor-in-chief of Guideposts magazine and author of “The Promise of Hope: How True Stories of Hope and Inspiration Saved My Life and How They Can Transform Yours.”
9 months ago