The Personal Power of Storytelling

There is incredible power in sharing story and listening to story.

We see this in the history of religion, with sacred stories being passed down orally from esteemed and selected teachers until they became books that created cultures.

We see this in the change of empires and cultures from the stories shared of new experiences and voices unheard.

We see this in how we consume media through the many different avenues of audio, print, music and video.

Story has always been a driving force of cultures, both positively and negatively — there is no way you can escape it. You could not have internet, never watch TV, never read a book, and STILL be influenced by a story; something you heard from someone else or a story you are telling yourself.

Story has influenced me as well. Honestly, I would not be alive if it wasn’t for the books I read as a child giving me a safe place to hide, another world to dream about, another glance into how life could be different.

Story changed me and continues to change me as I intentionally seek out voices that are different from my own. However, this isn’t something I have always done. For a long time, I ignored the hard things that were going on around me because I figured I had enough problems of my own and these weren’t affecting me personally. I didn’t believe in privilege because I had worked hard to break out of poverty and I didn’t want to believe in it because I would have to acknowledge that maybe I didn’t work as hard as I thought I did.

Then I made friends with people who didn’t look like me, didn’t think like me and came from different cultural backgrounds. Their perspectives and stories didn’t match my assumptions and I loved them enough to listen. They shared music, books and movies with me that helped me understand their perspective even more, and I began to open my heart to the possibility that I may have to change my mind. Every story I listened to felt like a shade was being lifted from my face. That shade had been protecting me from the too hot sun, but once it was gone, I began to see why the sun was so hot in the first place.

Diving into those stories was the beginning of my journey to understanding the many complexities of the beautiful, diverse world we live in.

Most people have similar stories of books, movies and music that had changed their perspective and lives. The goal of Diversify Print is to make this even more common, so that culture — people — can become kinder and better towards all life.

We want to change the world, and we are going to do it through story.