5 Reasons We Tell Our Stories

Stories play a huge role in our lives, both directly and indirectly.

Why do we tell our stories? Stories play a huge role in our lives, both directly and indirectly.

Here are 5 of the most common reasons we, as humans, choose to tell our stories.

#1. Creativity

Storytelling itself is a creative exercise. Just telling the stories is creative.

We can also choose lenses like scrapbooking, art journaling, photography, poetry, etc to give our stories an added layer. It can be really fun to create stories through these lenses.

#2. Posterity

We tell our stories so that the people who come after us (our children and their children and so on) will know who we are, what we did, and how we lived. In our stories, we explain our likes, dislikes, mistakes, ideas, struggles, triumphs & more.

We share stories so we can pass down our knowledge.

#3. Tradition

Storytelling has been used to explain why we do the things that we do. We have stories that pass down traditions through families, through communities, in our societies, etc.

We understand holidays, customs, socialization, and other cultural expectations through stories. Some of the earliest stories that we know and remember are our 'traditional' stories.

#4. Entertainment

So much of our entertainment is based on stories and storytelling -- books, TV, movies, video games, podcasts, this list could go on forever...(and then we go on to create so much more 'stuff' based on these stories).

We tell stories to entertain ourselves and others.

#5. Communication

Communication is hard. We use stories to make it easier. When we want to communicate difficult-to-process information or feelings, we turn to stories to help us relate to others on a more personal level.

Which are your favorite reasons for telling stories?