I will sometimes ask people, as I’m getting to know them better, what the myths are that they tell themselves about themselves. I don’t mean myths in the sense of being false, but in the sense of being mythic, a part of the story of who they are. Because it seems to me that people use myths the way that cultures use them: to explain something about themselves and where they came from and, sometimes, to commit to being that way in the future.
You can learn a lot about someone by what they say. You can be surprised, if they list a trait or tell a story that reveals one that you don’t associate with them. Or you can find yourself nodding along: yep, I can totally see that.
We all use stories, narratives, to organize what we know to be true, to make sense of what’s happened to us and to build up, layer by layer, our identity. And these myths tend to be woven into those stories. They can sometimes feel like the struts that hold up the whole edifice.
And much of the time, these myths are even true, or contain a kernel of truth, or are at least useful, or once were. But because of their mythic status and the fact that they hang around a long time, they can also end up being unhelpful, perhaps having outlived their usefulness, perhaps never really being all that true to begin with. But regardless, lest they become one of our stuck priors, it’s worth examining them every once in a while, whether just to retell them and bask in the comfort of knowing who we are and where we come from, or to interrogate them a little bit more and see if they are really as helpful and important as we think they are.
One of my myths that I had plenty of opportunity to examine over the last few years is that I’m that unflappable guy that doesn’t get anxious or depressed, doesn’t panic, doesn’t rise and fall with the daily drama: stoic, even-keeled, able to weather all storms. And there’s a lot of truth behind the myth – I’m generally remarkably free of worry or regret or fear or many other forms of inner turmoil. A function of privilege, I’m sure, as much as temperament, but still a part of how I experience the world. However, during some of the dark days of the pandemic and early days of my divorce, this myth obscured more than it revealed and made it hard for me to see that I was, for a change, for once in my life, actually, truly depressed. Protests that “Wait, that’s not me! I don’t get like that!” went unheeded and it took me a while to even notice that I was sad, overwhelmed, and starting to crumple under it. Ignoring the myth helped me see what was going on and friends, loved ones and a focus on processing what I was actually feeling helped me get past it.
Another myth was that I was uncannily loyal and steadfast – a buy-and-hold guy who didn’t chase the next great thing, who found what he wanted and stuck with it. I had worked at the same company for 25 years, been with the same woman for 27, lived in the same apartment for 24. My myth insulated me from any second guessing, but made the prospect of moving out and losing two of the three even more gut-wrenching. Still with the same company, but I continue to live and breathe and even thrive despite (because of?) the changes.
I’ll save the last myth that I had to come to terms with for another post, because there’s more to that story than these margins can contain.
So what are the myths that you tell yourself about yourself? What do they do for you and are they still doing what they are supposed to? Because I’ve learned that sometimes we need to question them and that we are free to make some new myths for ourselves about ourselves. My new ones are still a work in progress, but I’m trying to think about my life in mythic proportions to help the process along.