Here’s a story:



I was driving home from work and a car cut me off. The guy was driving really slowly, and I wound up following him for half a mile.

As it stands, it’s not a very interesting story. But suppose we add another line:

So I laid on my horn the whole time.

Or perhaps a different line:

That’s why I’m late.

Each of those two lines add a dimension to the story that wasn’t there before. Now, instead of just a story about me, we have a story about how I like to see myself, or perhaps how I like myself to be seen. Either way, I am expressing what might loosely be called a “value.” This value is not necessarily a moral value, but a way of being that I want to see myself as living, a way of being that I consider valuable for myself and seek to associate myself with. In the first case, I express something like, “I am not a person to be messed with.” In the second it is something like, “I am not a tardy person.”

Many of our stories about ourselves do this. We tell stories that make us seem adventurous, or funny, or strong. We tell stories that make our lives seem interesting. And we tell these stories not only to others, but also to ourselves. The audience for these stories, of course, affect the stories we tell. If we’re trying to impress a date, we might tell a story that makes us seem interesting or witty or caring, whereas if we’re trying to justify a dubious act to someone who is judging us (or perhaps ourselves), we might tell a story that makes us out to be without other recourse in the situation. In the latter case, what we are doing is dissociating ourselves from a value we might be associated with and thus implicitly associated ourselves with a different one.

Not all our stories about ourselves express values like these. However, many — perhaps most — of them do. This is so even where a story might seem to express a disvalue. Think, for instance, of people whose stories about themselves are often about things not working out for them. Whatever they try, they fail; the world conspires against them. These stories express values as well, values that often stem from resentment or even despair. They buttress a view of the world that justifies their being who they are and not someone more accomplished or happy or social.