>>It’s a story you’ve got about how you came to be, who you are, and where your life’s going...Narrative identity is just as much about how you imagine the future, even though it hasn’t happened yet, as it is about how you reconstruct the past. If I’m planning to be president of the United States, and I’m currently laboring in academia, well you’re going to have to develop a way to connect up your past with your goals for the future.
Having recently past my 47th birthday, I’ve come to realize how important is the notion of building a “narrative identity”.
It’s one piece of advice I’d love to give my younger self, and am starting to gratuitously give to younger people I speak with – come up with a narrative you wish to be the story of your life, and then day in, day out, lay down the bricks that will build that narrative into a reality. Be aware of the connections you need to build now, which will become your past, to what you want in the future.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. said Annie Dillard. Each decision you make, each project you start, each job you take – think of how it will impact the narrative you wish to build. Be deliberate about it. The small things you do each day, taken in aggregate, is what your life will be. Just like when kids make designs in freshly fallen snow, at the end of all your tramping, there will be a sketch, a print. Make sure it’s one you’d want.