Today I was reading Margo Leitman’s book Long Story Short, and she has an activity that she asks storytellers to think of a movie or television program and a character that they identify with—not a character they wish to be, but a character they identify with. This really struck me because I think if you asked me this question during an icebreaker activity in a class, I would say that I was a person who was easy to make laugh, easygoing, and a person who enjoyed having a good time.
Now, another activity that Leitman has students do is to pick a character that they want to be. If I’m going to be completely honest, actually, the person I just described is not who I am—it is the person that I really want to be. I have this overriding sense of seriousness, and I was raised with the belief that you have to do the “have tos” first and the “want tos” last.
In fact, two summers ago I was living in Hawaii, and I needed to drive across the Big Island from where I was staying with my family in Hilo to go to Kona. The purpose of my trip to Kona was to go to Costco, but there was a beach that people had recommended we go to because the snorkeling was really good. Now, the way I was raised, we would go to Costco first, and we would buy groceries because that’s the “have to,” and then we could do the “want to,” which would be going to the beach. But you can’t go to Costco and buy groceries and things that need to be refrigerated and then go to the beach for three or four hours of snorkeling. So I had to do the “want to” first and the “have to” second.
This seems like it would be the easiest thing in the world, right? But actually, for me, it was incredibly painful. I actually cried because it felt so wrong—because it went against the grain of who I was raised to be.
Now I find myself studying storytelling, and I read all these books that talk about how storytelling should be fun. I listen to my teachers who talk to about how storytelling is fun. I see people telling stories, and it’s quite obvious that they are having fun. Last week, as I was in class watching my peers tell stories then when we were doing the appreciative coaching, one of the things that came up over and over again was: “You seem to have a really good time telling this story,” “You seem to have a lot of fun while you were telling this story,” “I really enjoyed your enjoyment while you were telling this story.”
So while I consider myself to be a relatively intelligent human being, all of the things I read and all the things that were told somehow did not permeate my brain like that day sitting in class and listening to my peers provide feedback to the tellers. That’s when it finally hit me—it really sank into my brain: storytelling is fun.
I know that getting up in front of people and talking is, for many people, the worst fear that they have in their life, and I think getting past that is probably not a lot of fun. But I think about the joy we have in sharing the stories of our lives with other people and having them really listen. I muse about how telling stories connects us to other people. I can’t imagine anything that would be more fun than finding that moment of simpatico with others. What could be more fun than connecting yourself and your whole audience to the ideas and feeling you share while telling a story?
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