HeyJaredThe Stories We Live By
The Stories We Live By shines a light on narrative psychology and how story impacts on our lives; personally, socially, politically and culturally.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 5
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- Sep 18, 2026
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- Jul 8, 2026
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The Woman hoovering in a Plastic Medal (opens the original)
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I have heard - from others - that sometimes work appraisals turn into a list of criticisms of ‘improvements’ to be made. While there is value in trying to improve, the risk is failing to recognise what someone has achieved or done or overcome. There is a risk of missing the strengths and efforts that people have made. Not only is that discouraging but I don’t think anyone really feels good about that. It’s not just a matter of how people feel; an employee feeling disgruntled and maybe an employe
My A&E Stories of late (opens the original)
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Unfortunately, I have a health condition that means I end up in A&E from time to time, quite a bit of late.Before I describe my most recent experience, I want anyone reading this to know that I really am enormously grateful that we live in a country where we can turn up at a hospital and receive healthcare free at the point of delivery. I know how fortunate I am to have access to the NHS and to the many caring professionals working extremely hard within it. I support the NHS wholeheartedly and b
What is my next Story? (opens the original)
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I have been a parent for 24 years. That’s the time since birth, so if I include the bit before then, when I had already surrendered the sovereignty of my own body, I have been a parent for 25 years. My eldest daughter graduated this week. Yes, so a 1st from University of Bristol. Girl done good.For the last 30 years or so (probably longer), I have, for some inexplicable reason, tended to make a vague quarterly plan consisting of a spider diagram of things that I am concentrating on and things th
Stories can be created to manipulate in a convincing - yet dishonest way... (opens the original)
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I wrote this in a response to a question about what narrative I thought might be going on around the whole Clacton saga at the moment. Then I was asked to post it so here it goes. Before you read it, let’s just admit that we can all be conned, we can all be talked into buying something or be convinced about something that - if we had the time and resources to look into - we might say, that just doesn’t add up. I think of my Grandmother, living alone in London in her 80s when a man knocked at her
The Fallow Years (opens the original)
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For someone who thinks about stories every day, this was an uncomfortable realisation. It was recently pointed out to me how little I have achieved over the last three years in terms of the ambitions I had for myself. There are far too many ideas still sitting patiently in notebooks and not going anywhere, too many times that I have said ‘I’ll have time for this soon’. My first instinct was simply to agree. Yes. I’ve achieved very little.Then it started to occur to me that this was telling the w
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