Life is messy. It’s loud, it’s frustrating, and sometimes it feels like a never-ending loop of emails, laundry, and minor existential crises. But there is a specific kind of peace that comes from stepping back and realizing that these will all be stories someday. It’s not just a poetic sentiment or a catchy line you’d see on a minimalist poster in a high-end coffee shop. It is a fundamental shift in how we process time.
When you’re stuck in the middle of a disaster—maybe you lost your job, or you’re navigating a breakup that feels like a literal physical weight in your chest—the idea that this will eventually be a "story" feels almost insulting. It’s too raw. Yet, if you look at the people you admire most, their best traits usually came from the chapters they hated living through.
We are living in an era of constant documentation. We record everything. But there is a massive difference between a digital log of events and a narrative that carries weight.
The Psychological Power of Narrative Reframing
Why does the phrase these will all be stories someday actually work on a psychological level? It’s basically a DIY version of Narrative Therapy.
Psychologists like Dan McAdams have spent decades studying "narrative identity." The core idea is that we don't just live lives; we tell ourselves stories about the lives we are living. This isn't about lying to yourself. It’s about how you frame the "arc" of your experience. When you tell yourself that your current struggle is just a mid-book conflict rather than the ending, your brain reacts differently. Your cortisol levels might not drop instantly, but your perspective shifts from "victim of circumstance" to "protagonist in progress."
Think about the most boring person you know. Usually, it’s someone who has never had a "story" worth telling because they never took a risk or survived a mess.
Honestly, the stuff that makes us cringe now? That’s the gold. The time you tripped during a presentation or the disastrous first date where you spilled red wine on a stranger—those are the anecdotes that win people over at dinner parties five years down the line. We don't bond over each other's perfections. We bond over the shared absurdity of being human.
Why We Struggle to See the Story While It’s Happening
It is hard to be mindful when you’re miserable.
There’s a concept in linguistics called "temporal discounting," where we overvalue the present and undervalue the future. When you’re in pain, the present feels infinite. You forget that you’ve survived 100% of your worst days so far.
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We get caught in the "thick of it."
Imagine you’re looking at a Pointillist painting by Georges Seurat. If you stand two inches away, all you see are chaotic, meaningless dots of paint. It looks like a mess. It looks like a mistake. You have to back up. You have to give it space. Only then do the dots form a park, a river, or a person. Life is exactly like that. These will all be stories someday is just a way of reminding yourself to take ten steps back from the canvas.
The Role of Nostalgia and the "Reminiscence Bump"
Researchers often talk about the "Reminiscence Bump." This is the tendency for older adults to have increased recollection of events that happened during their adolescence and early adulthood. Why? Because that’s when the most "stories" happen. It’s when things are most volatile.
If your life feels a bit chaotic right now, you’re basically just stocking the shelves for your future self’s memory bank.
- The late nights working on a project that might fail.
- The cramped apartment with the radiator that clanks all night.
- The confusing "in-between" years where you don't know who you are.
These aren't just gaps between the "good parts." They are the parts.
Modern Documentation vs. Real Storytelling
We’re obsessed with "content" now. But content is hollow. A TikTok of a sunset isn't a story. A story requires tension. It requires a "before" and an "after."
I think about the journals people kept in the 1900s. They weren't performing for an audience. They were just trying to make sense of the world. Today, we often skip the "making sense" part and go straight to the "showing off" part. But the real realization that these will all be stories someday happens in the quiet moments when you aren't holding a phone.
It’s the realization that the person sitting across from you at dinner won't always be there. Or that the house you're living in will one day belong to someone else who doesn't know your name. That sounds dark, but it’s actually incredibly freeing. If everything is temporary, the pressure to be perfect evaporates.
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Lessons from the Great Storytellers
If you look at writers like Joan Didion or even modern songwriters like Taylor Swift, they treat their lives like raw material. Didion famously said, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."
She wasn't being metaphorical. She meant that without a narrative thread, life is just a series of random, often cruel, events. By deciding that these will all be stories someday, you are taking the power back from the event. You are saying, "You don't get to break me; you just get to be a chapter in my book."
Nuance matters here. This isn't about "toxic positivity." It’s not saying "everything happens for a reason." That phrase is often used to dismiss pain. Saying "this will be a story" acknowledges the pain but insists on its eventual transformation.
How to Start Living Like Your Life Is a Story
How do you actually apply this without sounding like a Hallmark card?
It starts with observation. Start noticing the "character beats" in your own life. When you’re in a truly ridiculous situation—like being stuck in an airport for 12 hours—try to narrate it in your head. Observe the weird characters around you. Notice the smell of the stale Cinnabon air.
- Write it down, but keep it private. True stories need honesty, and you can't be honest if you're worried about likes. Keep a "disaster log." Write down the stuff that sucks.
- Look for the "Inciting Incident." In screenwriting, this is the event that sets the plot in motion. When something goes wrong, ask yourself: What plot did this just start?
- Vary your pace. Stories need slow moments. Not every day needs to be a climax. It’s okay to have "filler" episodes where you just fold laundry and exist.
- Accept the "Antagonists." Every good story needs a villain or a hurdle. Sometimes the villain is a person; sometimes it’s just bureaucratic red tape or your own self-doubt. Frame the struggle as a necessary plot point.
The Weight of the "Someday"
The word "someday" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It implies a future. It implies that you will get through the current moment.
There is a strange comfort in the fact that 50 years from now, almost nothing you are currently stressed about will matter. Your credit score? The email you sent with the typo? The fact that you felt awkward at that party? All gone. What remains are the stories of how you handled it, who you loved, and how you kept going.
We spend so much time trying to avoid the "mess" of life, but the mess is exactly what makes the story interesting. Nobody wants to read a book about a person who stayed in their room, made zero mistakes, and had a perfectly stable 40-year career with no conflict. That’s not a story; that’s a manual.
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Taking Action: Turning Today into a Narrative
You don't need to be a professional writer to embrace the idea that these will all be stories someday. You just need to be an observer of your own life.
Start by identifying one thing right now that feels like a "mess."
Maybe it’s a career pivot that feels more like a freefall. Maybe it’s a relationship that’s hitting a rough patch.
Now, imagine yourself in ten years. You’re sitting at a table with a glass of water (or something stronger), telling a friend about "that year when everything went sideways."
How do you want to describe your younger self? Do you want to say, "I gave up and hid"? Or do you want to say, "It was terrifying, and I had no idea what I was doing, but I kept showing up"?
That’s the secret. You are the author. Even when you can't control the plot twists, you can control the tone of the narration.
Concrete Steps to Shift Your Perspective
- Audit your "Current Chapters": Give the current phase of your life a title. Is this "The Great Rebuilding"? "The Quiet Interim"? "The Year of No"?
- Keep a "Done" List: Instead of a To-Do list, at the end of a hard day, write down what you survived. It builds the narrative of resilience.
- Practice Active Reflection: Once a month, look back at a "disaster" from three years ago. Notice how much space it takes up in your mind now versus then. Use that as evidence for your current struggles.
- Collect Sensory Details: Stories aren't built on "I felt sad." They are built on "The rain felt like needles and I realized I’d forgotten my umbrella again." Pay attention to the physical world when things go wrong.
The reality is that these will all be stories someday, whether you like it or not. The only question is whether you’ll be the one telling the story, or if the events will tell the story of you. Choose to be the narrator.
Hold onto the messy, uncomfortable, and confusing bits. They are the only parts that actually matter in the end. Everything else is just background noise.