listen to the playlist I listened to when I wrote this:
I’ve been on and off reading Meg Jay’s The Defining Decade: Why your twenties matter—and how to make the most of them now.

I’ve mentioned this book quite a bit to friends and family and while I don’t agree with everything she says in here, a lot of it has certainly resonated with me.
Disclaimer: I’ve only read about half of it so I don’t know quite everything that happens, but the thing that stuck out to me most was the concept of the stories we tell ourselves.
In the book, Meg Jay (who is originally a therapist; the book is essentially a series of anecdotes from her wacky adventures in therapy) tells a story of her client, Cathy. For these sessions, Cathy and Meg are focusing Cathy’s habit of “dating down.” I’ll just paste some dialogue from the book to give you a picture of Cathy and her life:
When I expressed concern over Cathy’s interactions with men, she dismissed me by saying, “It’s just practice. The tewnties are a dress rehearsal.”
“And look what you’re practicing,” I said. “Consider what part you’re rehearsing to play.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
But when I asked Cathy how she would feel if, one day, one of her little students was having these sorts of relationships, she…said, “I wouldn’t want that for any of the girls in my class.”
“Why is it OK for you?”
“I mean, I know some of these guys care about me…Just not enough ot be my boyfriend.”
“That’s sad.”
Cathy, in middle school and high school, was always the odd one out. She was one of the only Asians in an all-white school and often was “pegged as a cultural stereotype” and “hardly felt noticed at all.” She was teased a lot in high school for not having sex and so during college, she had dived in head first into the world of sleeping around and sex.
“My whole life, it was like no one noticed me, except for my parents or maybe the kids in high school, and they never liked what they saw. Then all of a sudden I had something people wanted.”
“Sex.”
“…I constantly feel like everyone I meet started all this sooner. Like everyone else always wins. At some point, it needs to just be enough. I caught up. I’m not seventeen anymore.”
“That’s right. You’re twenty-seven.”
“…When is this going to stop ruining my life?”
“When you get this story out of the back of your mind.”
Meg Jay goes on to talk about the concept of “the stories we tell ourselves” and how these stories become “facets of our identity”. They become a part of us, the narrative that we weave about ourselves and tell to others. Which, yes, is obvious, but I don’t think I really realized the power of the personal narrative until I read this part of the book.
Cathy, for so long, had been identifying as the unattractive, undesirable girl she was in high school. But in those ten years that have spanned since then, she’s become an accomplished editor for children’s stories, she’s graduated from college, she’s moved to a different city entirely, bringing us to the piece of dialogue that packed the biggest punch:
“…It’s like I’m still that untouchable everybody said I was. Like I’m still seventeen.”
“A lot has happened since then.”
I think, for a long, long time, I’ve been letting old stories rule my life.
On my Instagram close friends story, I asked how people viewed me: introvert or extrovert?
And to my surprise, it resulted in 95% of people saying they thought I was an extrovert. For all of high school, I was so, so set on the fact that I was introverted. Even when I got to college, I would tell people I’m an introvert, as I would sit in the couch room chatting away for hours. As I would sit in my bedroom alone feeling the urge to talk to people or call up a friend. As I would talk with friends and people and feel excited and recharged.
Then, someone finally said, “Cami, I don’t know how to tell you this. But you’re not an introvert. You just didn’t like the people at your high school.” This was, admittedly, very funny, but it also made me realize that for so long, for seven years of my life, I was letting myself be ruled by this very specific story I was telling myself. That Cami is awkward and introverted, that she has a hard time making friends, because that’s how I had felt in high school.
But just like Cathy, a lot has happened since then. I’ve spent the past four years at MIT being extremely outgoing and meeting new people and making friends left and right.
Upon this discovery, I started to really, really evaluate the way I viewed myself, drafting and redrafting the stories I’ve told myself over the years and take a moment to ask myself: Are these things really true?
One of the many things I would tell myself, and other people, was “Oh, I’m not really that athletic. I’m really unfit.” And while this may have been true growing up, I realize that as an adult I’ve actually put a lot of effort into trying to be (relatively) active. I went to the gym 6 times a week throughout college, I started running, and more recently, hiking.
In fact, I went hiking just last week with a good friend, Claire. I told her that I would be heading to Yosemite soon and needed to find a way to ease myself back into exercising (I had had a particularly hedonistic senior spring semester and stopped all healthy habits). She said that she was, coincidentally, going hiking and that I should pop on by!
Little did I know that Claire was hiking Breakneck Ridge, one of the most strenuous hikes in the state!
I knew nothing about this trail going into it—I kind of just hopped on the Metro North like Claire said to and made my little waddle to the starting path. Claire informed me that we would be doing the Breakneck to Cold Spring route, which, yeah, sure, 4.5 miles is a lot but it’s fine. No biggie.
Then we walked for about 10 minutes before I was faced with just. Rocks.
I saw Claire had mentioned a rock scramble in the planning group chat the night before but, me, being an inexperienced hiking fool, did not realize that this is what that was. Breakneck Ridge was just 0.75 miles of climbing rocks.
I remember staring at these rocks, hearing those stories I had once told myself. I’m not athletic enough for this. Eva or Emma would be way better at this. No, no, I can’t do this. I’m going to have to be that loser that waits at the bottom or—
And then, like a cheesy karate movie, I heard Meg Jay’s words echo in my head. Remember the stories that we tell ourselves. And I thought of all the cool, active things I’d been doing for the past couple of years. Working out, lifting, running, hiking. I revised my draft, instead starting to tell myself the story of how cool this hike would be. I’ve climbed things before, I’ve gone bouldering; I wasn’t super great at it, but I still did it. I can do this. I’m stronger than I think.
And I began to climb.
Now, yes, I was much slower than Claire and Shawna, but I still did the damn hike. And I’m so, so proud of myself for it. And I feel like, infinitely more prepared for Yosemite.
I’ve found that the power of storytelling has helped me accomplish much more than just climbing big scary rocks; it’s helped me process another kind of daunting, terrifying journey: relationships and my romantic history.
To my good, good friends, they’ll know that when I describe my type, I always say I go after awkward men. Men who are a little rizzless, who aren’t super charismatic, who may be a little bit oblivious. Which there isn’t anything wrong with this type, but perhaps there may be something a little wrong with the reason why I pursue this.
Much like Cathy, I didn’t necessarily really view myself as all that attractive or desirable in high school. Yes I had had boyfriends at that time, but my self esteem was in the shitter for all of high school. I considered myself too awkward and too weird, not pretty or skinny like the other girls, or well versed in fashion and makeup and hair.
And I’ve carried a lot of that with me to college. Don’t get me wrong, I do think I’m pretty and I know how to dress and I know how to do my makeup. (Hair, not so much. We’re working on it). But I find myself shooting down dating prospects because of the stories I tell myself. “Guys like that would never be interested in me.” “I’m probably going to be too much for them.” “Oh I don’t think she would like the kind of person I am.”
What I’ve realized is that I’m not only telling myself old stories, I’m also writing stories for these other people, passing judgment on them before they even get a chance to tell me who they are. This isn’t only just with dating, too, it’s also with potential friends, and I’m trying to be better about it. Now, when I go into friend dates, I try to focus less on the old stories, and instead really try and focus on getting to know them. I’ve surprised myself a couple of times with the people that I’ve clicked with and befriended through this.
So, yes, maybe this was a little obvious to some people, but it really does feel like I’ve unlocked some kind of super power. (A lame one, known as the power of reframing and positive thinking, but a super power nonetheless). I find myself doing it now everywhere. I start getting nervous about cooking, knowing that I struggled to cook decent meals before, but then remind myself that 1) I’ve cooked good meals in the past and 2) there really is no harm in just doing it. I look at things that people make, like beautiful drawings or crocheted pieces or clay works and tell myself “Man, I’ve just never been that artistic” and then remember that I can just. Change that. “Why can’t I be artistic?” I ask myself, before running to Michael’s and picking up yarn for a crochet project. “Ugh, I wish I had beautiful hair like hers, I’ll never be able to get a handle on it” then becomes “I can become a haircare person, I did it with skincare before, I can do it now”.
The change has been so, so evident and I really do just feel like a more adventurous person as a result of it. The world used to be so closed off to me , unknowingly limiting myself to the confines of the stories I would tell myself. But just through some little switches in my self-talk and the way I view myself, I’ve been able to unlock so many new skills and experiences and relationships, and I’m so excited to see what other new adventures are out there for me.
BASED POST GLAD YOU'RE FIGURING IT OUT!!! :D
this was like me when i realized that "wait, my life doesnt suck anymore, and in the whole i am genuinely happy to be living it" which was a change from high school