Skip to main content

Rewriting our own life story


Derry is an adolescent boy who sees himself as a failure in life because of a huge scar on his face.  He looks hideous to himself whenever he looks in a mirror.  He thinks that he is unlovable.    People stare at him because of the scar.  He has heard people make remarks about the scar.  “Only a mother can love such a face,” he heard a woman say once.  But even his mother cannot apparently accept the scar; she kisses him on the side of his face which is normal.  Derry hides himself from people because of that hideous scar. 

Courtesy:
NCERT English textbook, class 12
One day he meets an elderly man called Lamb.  Mr Lamb tells him to rewrite his life story.  You have everything that a normal person has: two legs, two hands, etc.  Mr Lamb tells Derry.  Just like any other normal person, you can be a success if you change your perspective: the way you view the scar.  Accept the scar on your face and learn to ignore other people’s remarks about it.  And go about doing your job.  When you focus on accomplishments, other people will turn their attention from the scar to your accomplishments.  Rewrite your story.  Give a magical kiss to yourself.

Such kisses belong to fairy tales, Derry protests. 

If you think the kiss will remove the scar from your cheek and make you a handsome prince, yes, the miracle will belong to a fairy tale.  Mr Lamb clarifies.  The kiss is a change of attitude.  The scar will remain.  But your attitude to it will change.  Then your life will change.  That’s the miracle. 

Miracles are nothing but attitudinal changes. 

When the cancer patient begins to view his illness as an opportunity to look at life from a different angle, a miracle takes place.  Healing takes place.  All healing is a miracle, a change of attitude or perspective.  You may lose a leg in an accident and yet become a graceful dancer if you have the right attitude. 

Derry’s story is borrowed from Susan Hill.

What Mr Lamb did was to employ the Narrative Therapy (NT), a recent concept in psychology.  The motto of NT is: The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem.  It seeks to empower the person to confront the problem by looking at it from a different angle, a different perspective. 

The scar is not Derry’s real problem.  What he thinks about how people view his scar is the real problem.  Derry can rewrite his story if he wants.  He can write a story in which people talk about things other than his scar.  “Look at that boy, Derry, he is such a wonderful footballer.”  Derry can write new dialogues in his story.  And the new dialogues will materialise into reality.  We are the story we tell ourselves. 


Indian Bloggers




Comments

  1. A brilliant concept! Liked it! However, what you said makes a lot of sense. We slowly become what we believe. Great job, sir!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very true, as as David Schwartz said, “The right attitude and one arm will beat the wrong attitude and two arms every time."

    ReplyDelete
  3. I remember this story being taught in our school. Indeed a person is never the problem. A problem, to me, should be tackled exactly the way we tackle a mathematical algebraic equation! We might get lots of constraints, lots of unknowns and lots of redundant variables but we do somehow figure out how to find out the uunknowns from the lot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a nice comparison. Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) in counselling psychology would welcome your comparison gladly.

      Delete
  4. I totally agree! you can do wonders only if you change the way you think. Instead of hating yourself for what you dont have, you should love yourself for what you have!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For many people that's not so easy. Hence the need for some techniques.

      Glad to see you here.

      Delete
  5. I totally agree! you can do wonders only if you change the way you think always.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Totally agree and you have shared such an inspiring post. It left me smiling. Very important to turn focus towards how we want the world to see us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ... how we will make the world see us as we want it to.

      Glad you liked it.

      Delete
  7. very inspiring words. attitude makes all the difference in life

    ReplyDelete
  8. The problem is the problem.....I recently read this quote somewhere and here you are writing, as if you read my thoughts. Thanks for an inspiring read...!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I remember a blogger writing on Bibliotherapy!:) It is the art of writing a narrative of your problem with your favourite twist to do the miracle of attitudinal change!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bibliotherapy is more about reading a narrative than writing one. It's more akin to the catharasis of Aristotle. Of course, writing has been a therapeutic process for ages. The difference is that NT does the therapy with the help of a therapist.

      Delete
  10. Yes. I told the blogger that it is about reading that arouses catharsis. Yet, seeing the conviction, I overlooked. Now confirmed. Thank you.
    NT is objective and must be effective.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Yes. I told the blogger that it is about reading that arouses catharsis. Yet, seeing the conviction, I overlooked. Now confirmed. Thank you.
    NT is objective and must be effective.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Attitude is the power. This is one of the best posts I have read in a long-long time. Very inspiring, read.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And I'm glad to see you here after a long-long time :)

      Delete
  13. I have studied this story in my 12th standard(passed this year 2016). The original title is On the Face of It.
    It is a story which touches our hearts.
    Mr.Lamb though he has a blown leg adapts to situations & instead of retreating from life's adventures, he enjoys life.
    Thanks for making me remember this story

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Dopamine

Fiction Mathai went to the kitchen and picked up a glass. The TV was screening a program called Ask the Doctor . “Dopamine is a sort of hormone that gives us a feeling of happiness or pleasure,” the doc said. “But the problem with it is that it makes us want more of the same thing. You feel happy with one drink and you obviously want more of it. More drink means more happiness…” That’s when Mathai went to pick up his glass and the brandy bottle. It was only morning still. Annamma, his wife, had gone to school as usual to teach Gen Z, an intractable generation. Mathai had retired from a cooperative bank where he was manager in the last few years of his service. Now, as a retired man, he took to watching the TV. It will be more correct to say that he took to flicking channels. He wanted entertainment, but the films and serial programs failed to make sense to him, let alone entertain. The news channels were more entertaining. Our politicians are like the clowns in a circus, he thought...

Stories from the North-East

Book Review Title: Lapbah: Stories from the North-East (2 volumes) Editors: Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih & Rimi Nath Publisher: Penguin Random House India 2025 Pages: 366 + 358   Nestled among the eastern Himalayas and some breathtakingly charming valleys, the Northeastern region of India is home to hundreds of indigenous communities, each with distinct traditions, attire, music, and festivals. Languages spoken range from Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic tongues to Indo-Aryan dialects, reflecting centuries of migration and interaction. Tribal matrilineal societies thrive in Meghalaya, while Nagaland and Mizoram showcase rich Christian tribal traditions. Manipur is famed for classical dance and martial arts, and Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh add further layers of ethnic plurality and ecological richness. Sikkim blends Buddhist heritage with mountainous serenity, and Assam is known for its tea gardens and vibrant Vaishnavite culture. Collectively, the Northeast is a uni...

Dine in Eden

If you want to have a typical nonvegetarian Malayali lunch or dinner in a serene village in Kerala, here is the Garden of Eden all set for you at Ramapuram [literally ‘Abode of Rama’] in central Kerala. The place has a temple each for Rama and his three brothers: Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna. It is believed that Rama meditated in this place during his exile and also that his brothers joined him for a while. Right in the heart of the small town is a Catholic church which is an imposing structure that makes an eloquent assertion of religious identity. Quite close to all these religious places is the Garden of Eden, Eden Thoppu in Malayalam, a toddy shop with a difference. Toddy is palm wine, a mild alcoholic drink collected from palm trees. In my childhood, toddy was really natural; i.e., collected from palm trees including coconut trees which are ubiquitous in Kerala. My next-door neighbours, two brothers who lived in the same house, were toddy-tappers. Toddy was a health...