{"id":5545,"date":"2010-04-07T21:42:06","date_gmt":"2010-04-08T04:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/?p=5545"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:33:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:33:29","slug":"whats-the-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2010\/04\/07\/whats-the-story\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s The Story?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In reading Eckhart Tolle’s books, I am reminded that we shore up our egos with stories. Unfortunately, ego can be a monumental obstacle to real peace, real being. At one point in my life, it was very important to me to tell people my story: of where I came from, my family dynamics, the struggles I had, the battles I fought. I wanted to be understood<\/em>. That is, I wanted to be praised, pitied, cosseted. The older I get, however, the less important all that seems. Perhaps it’s interesting as family history, but it really isn’t vital to how I’m to live now. Or at least, it need not be. <\/p>\n

I was given a subscription to The Sun, and I always savor the last few pages, including the section called Sy Safransky’s Notebook (he’s the editor). From the March 2010 edition:<\/p>\n

I left my story in a barn so someone else could keep milking it. I left my story in the fitting room; it didn’t fit me anymore. I left my story at the hospital because it wouldn’t stop bleeding. I left my story at the rest stop; it needed a rest. I left my story at the body shop because it always wanted a different one. I left my story with some cash so it could never say, “Poor me.” I left my story without saying where I was going because I didn’t want it to follow me; it never even noticed I was gone.<\/p>\n

–Sy Safransky<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In reading Eckhart Tolle’s books, I am reminded that we shore up our egos with stories. Unfortunately, ego can be a monumental obstacle to real peace, real being. At one point in my life, it was very important to me to tell people my story: of where I came from, my family dynamics, the struggles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,25,28,217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-education","category-humanities","category-meditation"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5545"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11777,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5545\/revisions\/11777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}