Watch for Three “Clever” Stories
As we begin to piece together why people are doing what they’re
doing (or equally important, why we’re doing what we’re doing),
with time and experience we become quite good at coming up
with explanations that serve us well. Either our stories are com
pletely accurate and propel us in healthy directions, or they’re
quite inaccurate but justify our current behavior-making us feel
good about ourselves and calling for no need to change.
It’s the second kind of story that routinely gets us into trouble.
For example, we move to silence or violence, and then we come
up with a perfectly plausible reason for why it’s okay. “Of course
I yelled at him. Did you see what he did? He deserved it.” “Hey,
don’t be gi”ing me the evil eye. I had no other choice.” We call
these imaginative and self-serving concoctions “clever stories.”
They’re clever because they allow us to feel good about behaving
badly. Better yet, they allow us to feel good about behaving badly
even while achieving abysmal results.
Among all of the clever stories we tell, here are the three most
common.
Victim Stories-lilt’s Not My Fault”
The first of the clever stories is a Victim Story. Victim Stories, as
you might imagine, make us out to be innocent sufferers . The
theme is always the same. The other person is bad and wrong,
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and we are good and right. Other people do bad things, and we
suffer as a result.
In truth, there is such a thing as an innocent victim. You’re
stopped in the street and held up at gunpoint. When an event
such as this occurs, it’s a sad fact, not a story. You are a victim.
But all tales of victimization are not so one-sided. When you
tell a Victim Story, you ignore the role you played in the prob
lem. You tell your story in a way that judiciously avoids facts
about whatever you have done (or neglected to do) that might
have contributed to the problem.
For instance, last week your boss took you off a big project,
and it hurt your feelings. You complained to everyone about
how bad you felt. Of course, you failed to let your boss know
that you were behind on an important project, leaving him
high and dry-which is why he removed you in the first place.
This part of the story you leave out because, hey, he made you
feel bad.
To help support your Victim Stories you speak of nothing but
your noble motives. “I took longer because I was trying to beat
the standard specs.” Then you tell yourself that you’re being pun
ished for your virtues, not your vices. “He just doesn’t appreci
ate a person with my superb attention to detail.” (This added
twist turns you from victim into martyr. What a bonus ! )
Villain Stories – “It’s All Your Fault”
We create these nasty little tales by turning normal, decent
human beings into villains. We impute bad motive, and then we
tell everyone about the evils of the other party as if somehow
we’re doing the world a huge favor.
For example, we describe a boss who is zealous about quality
liS a control freak. When our spouse is upset that we didn’t keep
a comm i tment, we see him or her as inflexible and stubborn.
In Vict im Stories we eX�lggcrate our own innocence. In Vil lain
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Stories we overemphasize the other person’s guilt. We automatical
ly assume the worst possible motives while ignoring any possible
good or neutral intentions a person may have. Labeling is a common
device in Villain Stories. For example, “I can’t believe that bonehead
gave me bad materials again.” By employing the handy label, we are
now dealing not with a complex human being, but with a bonehead.
Not only do Villain Stories help us blame others for bad
results, but they also set us up to then do whatever we want to
the “villains.” After all, we can feel okay insulting or abusing a
bonehead-whereas we might have to be more careful with a
living, breathing person. Then when we fail to get the results we
really want, we stay stuck in our ineffective behavior because,
after all, look who we’re dealing with!
Watch for the double standard. When you pay attention to
Victim and Villain Stories and catch them for what they are
unfair characterizations-you begin to see the terrible double
standard we use when our emotions are out of control. When we
make mistakes, we tell a Victim Story by claiming our intentions
were innocent and pure. “Sure 1 was late getting home and didn’t
call you, but I couldn’t let the team down! ” On the other hand,
when others do things that hurt us, we tell Villain Stories in
which we invent terrible motives for others based on how their
actions affected us. “You are so thoughtless! You could have
called me and told me you were going to be late.”
Helpless Stories-“There’s Nothing Else I Can Do”
