The Longer The Tale, The Harder The Fail

I can't remember the last time dread hasn't filled every pore of my body. For the past hours I've been staring into a screen. Thank (insert your favorite deity here) the screen can't look back because what it would see would terrify it.

"Maybe it will get better. No, for sure it will get better!", my brain tells me.

Yet the problem persists. It's been persisting for a while now. I can't seem to get myself out of it. I am deeply frustrated because of a story. A story I tell myself over and over again

It's 2023, I'm working at an insurance company, and I know it's the wrong place for me. I love the people and the culture of the company, but the product and the day-to-day job isn't for me.
Every sane person would've probably quit after six months.
I stay for three years.
And the reason for that is the beautiful yet monstrous capability of the brain to create narratives.

Sitting there at my desk, drowning in self-pity while trying to figure out what I should do with my life, I realize something. A concept just popped into my head: A sort of litmus test to clarify if one is on the right path or not.
We humans are innate storytellers. We can tell when a story is great and when it isn't. We also know that the length of a story only adds to its quality in one regard: as short as possible, but not shorter. That's when the tension is highest. And this is exactly what I realize:

The longer the story you have to tell yourself that you are in the right place, the further away you are from it.

This was the narrative I told myself back then:

"I want to have a positive impact on the world. I believe I can do that through my work. I work in the IT department of an insurance company. So when I do my job right, my colleagues can work better. When my colleagues can work better, then our insurance policies will be better. When our policies are better, then we're more likely to have happy customers. When our customers are happier, then word will spread and we will have even more customers. When we have even more customers, then we might be able to drop our prices, making our great policies available to customers who weren't able to afford them before. When these people are able to afford the policies, they will be able relax more because their risk's taken care of. When they're able to relax more, they have more mental capacity for things they enjoy. When they do more of the things they enjoy, they will be happier people. When they're happier people, they will be better company to be around. When they're better company to be around, then it will have a positive ripple effect in other people's lives. When it has a positive ripple effects on other people's lives, these people are also more likely to create positive change in the lives of the people around them. Then there will be more joy in the world. That's why I'm doing this job."

Tolkien doesn't have anything on me, baby.
I mean, if I even had to tell myself half of this story it would still be too much.

This is how I imagine a narrative of a medical doctor would go:

"I want to have a positive impact on the world. I believe I can do that through my work. I work as an MD, treating patients to get them back to health. When my patients are healthy again, their life will be much better than before. Then there will be more joy in the world. That's why I'm doing my job."

That was much easier to write. Most of all, it's much shorter, which means this person would be much closer to the right place.

Granted, this is all very subjective. What's important to someone might not be important to someone else. Maybe the narrative of someone else who would do my former job would be this:

"I want to live my life and pay my bills. I believe I can do that through my work. I work in the IT department of an insurance company. This lets me pay my bills and live my life."

Much shorter again! Which, again, means this person is at a place where he or she feels like they belong.

But the question remains: why do we come up with such narratives?

It still seems most people want to have some kind of impact on the world. This is also coupled with the want to be useful. When one of these needs doesn't get fulfilled, facing reality can become very painful. Then such narratives can become a kind of sedative. But just like any painkiller, its effects wear off and get less useful over time.

There's just one thing we can do to get ourselves out of it: facing the pain.

The fear of feeling the pain is much greater than the pain itself. We fear this horrible feeling will engulf us forever. But this is a false belief. When we have the courage to plunge into the abyss, we realize it's not the deep dark ocean we thought it would be. We find ourselves submerged, but only in shallow water, and it doesn't take long to surface again. When we've gone through the pain, the plunge in the cold water has cleared our minds and now we're able to see through the fog: the false narrative disappears, and reality arises.

This gives us enormous power: now that we see clearly, we can finally act on it. Seeing reality clearly is the foundation for change.
If someone wants to lose weight, the first step isn't to change their diet. It's looking in the mirror and realizing they're overweight. Otherwise, if an overweight person thinks they're at a healthy weight, why would there ever be a reason to start getting in shape? The rocket fuel may be there, but the ignition's missing.
That's exactly what seeing reality clearly does.

That's when you can take the pen back in your own hand and rewrite the narrative you're in. Then you will be able to create true change in your life and go into the direction you desire. That's when you become the author of your own story.