And neither is life story writing.
If you have taken one of my classes on life story writing you may have been part of the Charles Shultz test. It goes kinda like this…. Name the MVP of last years Super Bowl. Name the two teams that were in the Super Bowl three years ago. Name the quarterbacks from the Super Bowl four years ago. No fair looking up the information to find the answers. But if I asked you about your favorite teacher and what they taught you that made a difference I am sure you could come up with a name and a great story. If I asked you who was your best friends in elementary school and what that relationship did for you, I am sure that you could remember. Life is not the high stakes all in an event like the Super Bowl but the everyday people who really have an impact on our lives.
We love the high drama. We love the spectacular whether it be The Emmies, the Oscars and yes the Super Bowl. But they are not really a part of our lives unless we are the actress or football player. They are the things that we watch. We watch to be part of a community that watches so we can talk about it at the water cooler the next day. We will watch the Olympics to see the pageantry and the skills the athletics have taken years of practice to preform at their best. But we watch and most of us will not remember the names of those people for more than a week.
It is our real lives that we write about. The real people who touch our hearts in so many ways. It could be when a friend you have not seen in years comments positively on one of your hobbies and rekindles you interest in that hobby again. It can be the remark one of your kids makes about “modern” you are compared to all your friends. It can be how you celebrate the relationship with your own parents and how that has changed over the years. It is all these nobodies that make us feel special and that we write to about to remember them in our stories and to pay them tribute with our words. No trophies will be handed out but smiles on their faces when they read the stories.
TRIGGERS:
- Name three of the people who had the most impact on your life?
- Name the three people of all time who you would love to be stuck on an island with?
- Name three people who you would love to have over for dinner and what would you serve?
- Name the three sports figures that have some attribute that you admire?
- Name three people who continue to teach you something?
someone caught me….Charles Schultz Philosophy is really a bit different but then the Super Bowl but in many ways very much alike. The questions are:
1) Name 5 of the wealthiest people in the world.
2) Name the last five Heisman trophy winners. (not too far off?)
3)Name the last five winners of Miss America.
4)Name 10 people who have won the Noble or Pulitzer Prize.
5) Name the last 6 Academy Award winner for best actress and actor.
6) Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.
BUT the point is none of us remember the headlines of yesterday. They are the best in their fields but after the applause dies so do the names…
There are some very important people in our lives that are really much more important to us and should be written about in our life stories…