The Stories that We Tell Ourselves
I sit here, writing this post on the 29th day of March, which is my birthday. No one could have predicted how my birthday would have turned out this year, in the midst of the global coronavirus epidemic - least of all me. But as I commemorate my birthday here in a foreign country without friends or family, the best thing that I can do today is to remind myself of who I am truly am and how this virus won't defeat me or this world. For after love, I would say that the second most powerful force in this world is storytelling, especially the stories we tell ourselves - stories about our origins, our peoples and our faiths. In the midst of pain, we can find hope and strength from the stories that we tell ourselves. How will my story end? I don't know exactly. But I know that my faith has one story to tell, and that is the story that I cling to most dearly in dark times like these.