This post was submitted on Tell A Story. Isn’t it time you told your story?

I teach theater and drama at a university, where I also run a small theater program, producing and directing student plays. This year I’m on sabbatical from the university, freed from my teaching and directing responsibilities and in pursuit of experiences which will enrich my work. Among the highlights of the sabbatical so far: I’m currently designing sound for a professional theater production in New England; an article I wrote has been accepted for publication in a national journal; I have auditioned for and been cast in a professional production of a Shakespeare play in one of America’s biggest cities.

Now let me construct a set of narratives on which these facts may be hung, three stories I can tell myself to explain these facts, all of them “true.” Here’s one story: I’m pretty hot stuff. I’m at the top of my game. After all, to secure my services as designer and as actor, these theater companies are willing to shell out cash: the litmus test of professional activity. And I’m getting published, the gold standard for academic achievement. I’m very successful. Professional artist, serious scholar. You must be impressed.

Here’s another true story: I’m bogus. Getting “paid”? Get real. Sure, there’s some money in those gigs, but it’s a pittance, a stipend–a pity paycheck, really. And that New England theater company? It’s very small, and it performs in the boondocks. If I weren’t such a loser, I’d instead be designing gee-whiz sound effects for a Broadway production that gets favorably reviewed in the New York Times. Likewise with the Shakespeare: I’m cast in a very small role in a smallish production, and of course if I were truly successful I would be playing Lear on the West End, getting written up in the Times of London and courted by movie moguls. And don’t even get me started about that article! It’s not going to appear in some top-flight academic publication, after all, but rather in a little journal rooted in the faith tradition of barely a score of colleges around the country. If I were worth my academic salt, I’d be publishing a book of ground-breaking criticism or a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. But I’m not doing those things, so I must be bogus. I don’t measure up. I fall short. You must find me laughable, pathetic.

A third true story: I’m blessed. I’m learning so much about sound design that will be useful in the theater and in the classroom, and I’m working with wildly enthusiastic and surprisingly skilled people, who have enough discipline and moxie to pull this off. And I’m helping them do it–and I’m having a blast. And then I get to immerse myself in Shakespeare for THREE MONTHS! For me, a lover of his language, this is to die for. Plus I’ll learn so much about both acting and directing–and a thousand other things about theater–that I can weave into my own practice and teaching. And I’ll be doing this with people whose skill level will force me to raise my own, while collectively we enable a few thousand people to experience the work of perhaps the greatest dramatist ever. What an opportunity! And in the meantime, I’ve written something that will catch the attention of several hundred serious and thoughtful people (as opposed to the handful who read any given article in most academic journals), and generate authentic discussion about issues they find important. For a writer, what greater gift? Like I say, I’m blessed. You must think I’m . . . well, actually, it doesn’t matter what you think. I’m blessed.

Again, these stories are all true: that is, all of the claims I’ve made in each one are accurate. And each of them has its value. The first story is my marketing story: the one I’ll tell my dean, when I return from sabbatical. The second story is the one I tell myself when I start taking the first story seriously. This is my reality-check story. But the story most likely to lead in a personally productive direction is of course the third, because it focuses on the real value of my experience, to myself and to others. This is a love story. When our stories are all about our success or our failure, or about how we’re being perceived, we’re missing the point. Better to count our blessings, and marshall our facts of life into a narrative of gratitude and joy.