The Power of Story

November 24, 2025

“Without a story to give a framework to our lives, they become fragmented and scattered…[our] narratives give us goals, projects, and purposes worthy of ourselves.”

Paul J. Waddell

I see the concept of story wherever I look. Story is such a universal—through cultures, through the decades, eons even, story has always been the way we make sense of our lives. The many benefits of Birren’s “Life Review” are revealed in numerous research studies, but one that stands out repeatedly is that taking the time to give words to your life story gives you agency, and helps you to make sense of your life as a cohesive whole.

When our stories feel fragmented, we feel fragmented too.

Shared stories bring us together—the jokes about great grandpa at Thanksgiving and the collective eyeroll at Aunt Susie’s constant badgering are actually a unifying force. We may be different in a million different ways, but we have an unbreakable bond if we share common ground in our story.

Similarly, stories that aren’t shared may feel divisive. Though we may all be Americans, if our experience in America, our story here, has been vastly different, our perspective on citizenship may not be the same. In fact, it may be so starkly different that we don’t see eye-to-eye on what the value of our citizenship even is. It’s not that either perspective is wrong; it’s that our stories aren’t the same. We don’t share a common ground, we don’t have that unbreakable bond that shared story can provide.

That’s the power of memoir. Memoir gives us a window into someone else’s story. It may not be our story, but the genre offers us the opportunity to bear witness to someone else’s story. In bearing witness, we may develop empathy for the author’s path even if it’s not the path we think we would have chosen. Memoir allows the reader to be in the author’s shoes for a brief moment. Once we’ve been in someone else’s shoes, shared their story, we feel more connected, despite our many differences.

Authoring a memoir offers the writer an opportunity for reflection. “Oh, I wonder what would have happened if I done x instead of y? Why did I do x? Was it related to this occurrence?” I recently wrote some personal memoir-esque pieces where I relayed (for myself) some things I was sorry had unfolded the way they had. I reflected on what I could have done differently as well as what I felt I had done that was true to myself. I saw some patterns of growth, and I noted that some of the things I could have done differently, I could take into the now. It was an invaluable exercise.

Reflection of any kind is time well-spent because it allows us to map, and to reinforce, the framework of our lives. We aren’t just single wheels spinning on our own; our lives are complex stories, gear teeth that only work when they rotate in concert. If one of those teeth jam, the whole thing stutters. If we don’t take time to find, and to connect, our stories, we feel fragmented, spinning, not worthy of our purpose. Knowing our story is one of the things that makes us strong.