The stories we tell...

I’m inspired by my daily interactions with people. Whether it’s listening to their stories, their success, their fears, or just watching them do the things the do. People inspire me in many ways, and every interaction is special to me. 

When I drive through traffic, I love to watch people interact with each other. Many times I make up stories in my head, but I try to make sure that they are not sad stories. I create stories with random people as the protagonist, and I try not to follow the sometimes-biased narrative that we tend to have as a society. 

I see the woman selling oranges talking to her little daughter, and I don’t assume that she is being mean to her. I assume that she’s telling her a beautiful story about her life growing up in a small dainty house in Umuahia. I see the man who stopped to read the newspaper on the street, and I don’t assume that he’s being a "sharp guy", trying to read for free. Perhaps, he’s friends with the newspaper vendor, and he stops there daily to put a smile on the vendor’s face. That lady who is standing there with the big pot on her head?…she’s not a poor woman. In fact, she owns two food spots in Illupeju, and has used her earnings to send her kids to university. And that guy with the strong face staring at me, is not trying to rob me. He’s just thinking up his own story of me, the “oyibo,” expatriate that is just visiting Nigeria for a few days. Oh if only he knew how wrong he is...

Life is a collection of stories - some true, and others made up. Your life’s experiences, as well as society have created stories that have been downloaded into your heads as a program. The more you grow into yourself, the more you must begin to craft your own narrative. 

The stories you tell yourself are more powerful than you think.

Write yours.

x

Adaora ‘Lumina’ Mbelu

"Society will always find a narrative to place on you. But these narratives are mostly our inability to understand how you ARE and WANT different from us..." #LuminasThots