Jen Oshman

The first story is broadcast loudly across pop culture, social media, and all media. It proclaims that you and I are the center of the universe. We are unique individuals, and we can be awesome. We just need to create our identities. By making the right choices with our wardrobes and weekends, and by hanging out with the right people and doing the right things, we can be limitlessly happy. The world offers you and me an amazing life; we just have to go out and make it happen.

It’s the questioning and the longing when the over-promises of the first story underdeliver.

The whisper tells us we were made for more

We continuously suppress that second story, though—largely because the first story is so loud. It’s hard to argue with

declares that we can be whoever we want to be.

Pursuing the second story would take time and intentionality.

It would mean rejecting the societal song that says you can have your best life right now.

It would mean believing there’s a real truth out there that we must discover, rather than thinking we are the makers of our own truth, right here, right now.

It’s so taken for granted that we don’t wonder at overworking or consumer debt or gender fluidity.

It’s a tale as old as we are. It’s the serpent who keeps saying If you really want to live, take matters into your own hands