Two Perspectives — Quote: Go laugh in the places you have cried. Change the narrative.
“Go laugh in the places you have cried. Change the narrative.”
I saw this quote as I was doom scrolling through Instagram and at first I thought, “oh what a transformative sentiment”.
And then I paused and thought about how that writes over the history of the prior story.
And then I had an existential crisis.
A lot of the time it feels like people don’t consider alternative perspectives or viewpoints. They’re so stuck in what they believe to be true that when challenged with another view or even just shown another perspective, they hunker down and double down on what they believe.
I’m not saying I’ve never done this, but as I grow older, I’m finding it more and more important to look at all sides and all perspectives to understand. And while I have areas in my life where I have trouble with this, practice makes progress.
So here we go. I’m using colors to define the perspective because nothing is right or wrong, left or right, up or down, A or B. They’re just perspectives.
Perspective Orange on the quote: Go laugh in the places you have cried. Change the narrative.
This can be such a positive and transformative mantra for someone dealing with, maybe not necessarily trauma, but something that they don’t like about their past.
If you feel like you’re defined by a particular moment that’s happened to you — how you handled a breakup or something that you said to another person — changing the narrative at that particular place can be such a powerful symbol for taking back the power that that location has had over you.
Symbols themselves are powerful in our own personal narratives. Symbols can represent so much from emotions, to people, to traits that we believe about ourselves. And when a particular place becomes a symbol of something, it can become a constant reminder that is multiplied even more if it’s consistent in our environment.
That consistent symbol becomes amplified if it’s something that I see every day or every week. It becomes more of an abstract symbol if it’s a place that you visited on vacation that one time or a restaurant you went to just out of town.
The amplification can begin to define you if it’s repeated enough throughout your life.
I’ve read that power itself is a symbol that needs to be taken back by people who have experienced trauma and being able to re-define that symbol of that place by changing the narrative can become a symbol in and of itself of transformation and not letting something else define who you are but taking control of your own power, your own destiny, your own life.
That is inspiring.
Perspective Purple on the quote: Go laugh in the places you have cried. Change the narrative.
History is full of people re-writing history with their own narrative and changing the stories of the people that came before them.
Not only changing the history or the narrative but not believing in the narrative provided by data and science. But this is another topic.
By ignoring the past and creating a revisionist history, do we end up ignoring the truth? If we change the narrative and ignore the past, do we ignore our past and the lessons that we’ve learned?
If we change the narrative and erase the past, it feels like we’re ignoring what has made us who we are. We are making ourselves blind and ignorant moving forward.
I would much rather remember the what has happened and reflect on how that has helped me grow or evolve. Maybe how that has changed my view or my perspective and be able to appreciate the lesson I learned.
There’s a reason that we tell stories the way that we do. There’s a reason that we, as human beings, reflect on things that have happened. It’s so we can learn and grow from events and mistakes and the things that have happened to us. Even if that lesson is that this horrible thing has happened so that we know that it can and because we know that it can, we know how to prevent it happening again in the future.
That is also inspiring, but in a different way.
