Random Ramblings on Story

This election season has provided the people of the United States (and dare I say the world?) with a unique opportunity. Regardless of your political persuasion, all four of the people running for the highest office in the country have really fascinating life stories. Joe Biden lost his wife and year old daughter in a car wreck (and almost lost his two sons as well) in the early 70’s and was a Senator and single dad for five years before remarrying. Sarah Palin is a mother of five who started her political career in the PTA of her kid’s school and is now Governor of Alaska. Barak Obama was raised by a single mom and grandparents and pulled himself up from having nothing (materially) to Illinois Senator and then U.S Senator. John McCain was a P.O.W. in Vietnam for five years and a U.S. Senator since 1986. And that is just a skim of the surface; the many layers for each of them are fascinating and give plenty of indications why they are where they are today and who they are while they walk it out.

Reading their stories is a great reminder that every person on the planet has their own tale to tell. Some may blow it off as boring but that is impossible. From birth to the present every single one of us is living out our own original, unique journey and it cannot help but be fascinating. And to take it a mystical step deeper, we are all influenced by the people around us living out their specific life and the times we intersect have a tendency to knock us around a bit. Sometimes the bumps cause us to veer this way or zig that way, never really off course, but possibly heading a direction we did not expect. Why do people always say, “If you’d of told me five (or ten or twenty or two) years ago that I would be (fill in the blank), I would have never believed you.” We say it because our lives are mysterious and hard to predict, a fact we can either embrace or struggle with. It is why I like to sit in the mall or in traffic and look at people and wonder about their story.

All these people. All these stories. And not many of us taking time to listen. So next time you are hanging out with someone you don’t know (or that you do know) look them in the eye and ask, “What’s your story?” And listen.