And where there is courage, there are stories. We are all survivors, and to survive, we have courage. What would that story be about? It would show one-just one-emerging theme: courage. Then, voila, the machine creates one single life story that represents everyone in that room.
#WHEN WRITING THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE FULL#
But imagine yourself in a room full of people, each of whom has written a life story and entered it into a giant computer. “But I don’t have much of a story,” you might say to yourself.
The best book you’ll ever read is the one you write-your life story-and it can be as easy as writing a love letter. Ultimately, we don’t want to be judged.īut let’s take a moment and reframe this into something far more positive. We worry about dialogue, grammar and style. So we quickly become discouraged when starting to write our stories. One proven way to help connect generations is by sharing your life story with your children and grandchildren. “Writing your life story is a gift you leave for the future.”
Through our stories, our intergenerational connections can be kept strong, even with great-great-grandchildren we may never meet,” Svensson says. “Or as one man said, ‘I’ll just be a name scribbled on the back of a faded photograph.’ “More and more older people understand that unless they write their story, it will be lost,” she says. During that time, she’s noticed an increase in interest in life stories or memoir writing. Cheryl Svensson, director of the Birren Center for Autobiographical Studies, has spent more than 20 years working with older adults who want to write their life story. So what can we do? How can we reopen the floodgates of wisdom that pass between generations? Dr. Social visits are formal and stilted, and may happen once or twice in a year. But for most Americans, this is not the reality. The few resources on the subject suggest just the usual platitudes: Spend more time together. Family Tree Templates and Relationship ChartsĪ quick scan of the internet will find very little in terms of maintaining inter-generational connections beyond social media.
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#WHEN WRITING THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE HOW TO#
How to Find Your Ancestor’s US Military Records.