Before we turn life into a story

My first report in graduate school was about phenomenology. Like most students encountering a new philosophical tradition, I initially approached it as an academic requirement. I read the assigned materials, tried to understand the unfamiliar concepts, and organized what I had learned into something I could explain to the class. At the time, my main concern was whether I understood the subject well enough to present it clearly. I did not expect the topic to remain with me after the report was over.

Phenomenology, in its simplest sense, is concerned with lived experience. It asks us to examine how we encounter the world before we impose our assumptions, explanations, and judgments upon it. Rather than immediately asking why something happened or what it means, phenomenology encourages us to begin with the experience itself. What did we see? What did we feel? How did the moment appear to us as we were living through it?

The more I thought about this, the more I realized how difficult it is to observe life without immediately interpreting it. We are constantly assigning meaning to our experiences. We decide whether a day was productive, whether a conversation went well, whether a decision was correct, or whether a difficult period made us stronger. We compare the present with the past and try to determine where it might lead us. Sometimes, we begin constructing the story of an experience before the experience has even ended.

Perhaps I notice this tendency because I work in communication. For much of my professional life, I have been asked to take events, decisions, and ideas and turn them into clear messages. I have written for organizations and leaders, each with a particular audience, purpose, and voice. This work has trained me to identify the important details, find an appropriate angle, and explain what something means to the people who need to understand it.

There is value in that process. Stories help people make sense of complicated events, and good communication can create understanding where there was previously confusion. However, working as a communicator can also make it difficult to experience something without considering how it might eventually be presented. An event becomes a possible article. A conversation offers a potential quotation. A difficulty becomes a lesson, while an achievement becomes a milestone. Even while something is happening, part of the mind is already organizing it into a narrative.

This is where phenomenology has become meaningful to me beyond the classroom. It reminds me that there is a difference between observing an experience and immediately turning it into a story. Before we decide what a moment represents, we should first allow ourselves to encounter it. This requires us to suspend, even temporarily, the instinct to explain everything according to what we already believe.

In phenomenology, this suspension is sometimes described as “bracketing.” The idea is not that we can completely remove our beliefs or personal histories from the way we see the world. Rather, we make a conscious effort to recognize those assumptions and prevent them from determining everything we notice. In everyday life, bracketing may be as simple as listening to someone without preparing a response, revisiting a familiar place with greater attention, or allowing an emotion to exist before deciding whether it is reasonable.

This way of observing can also change how we encounter other people. We often understand individuals according to the roles they occupy in our lives. We see someone as a colleague, supervisor, friend, family member, public official, or stranger. These categories are useful, but they can also make us believe that we already know who a person is. Once we become comfortable with our interpretation of someone, we may stop paying attention to the details that complicate it.

The same problem applies to how we understand ourselves. Over time, we develop stories about the kind of person we are. We describe ourselves as ambitious, reserved, successful, uncertain, independent, or responsible. These descriptions may contain some truth, but they can also become limiting. When an experience does not fit the identity we have constructed, we may dismiss it or force it into an older narrative rather than consider what it might reveal about us now.

Observing life as it happens, then, is not merely about noticing more details. It is about becoming more open to what an experience might show us. It means accepting that we do not always know immediately what a moment means. Some experiences need time before they can be understood, and others may never offer the clear lesson or resolution we expect from them.

This can be uncomfortable because we live in a culture that encourages immediate interpretation. We are expected to have an opinion about every development and a response to every question. Social media has made it possible to document an experience and publish our reflections on it almost simultaneously. The distance between living and narrating has become increasingly small.

There is nothing inherently wrong with documenting our lives or sharing what we have learned. I continue to believe in the power of storytelling. However, I am also beginning to understand that a story becomes richer when it comes from careful attention rather than immediate reaction. If we move too quickly to the lesson, we may overlook the contradictions and uncertainties that made the experience human.

Many of the moments that shape us do not announce their importance while they are happening. They may appear ordinary at first: a conversation we did not expect to remember, a quiet gesture from someone, a familiar routine that later disappears, or an unremarkable day that acquires meaning only in retrospect. If we are always searching for the obvious story, we may fail to notice the experiences that do not immediately present themselves as significant.

My report on phenomenology began as an academic exercise, but its central question has followed me into my life as a communicator and writer. It has made me think more carefully about the relationship between experience and storytelling. Writing requires us to interpret life, but good writing also requires us to observe it closely. We cannot describe honestly what we have never allowed ourselves to experience fully.

Perhaps this is what it means to pay attention: to resist the urge to make every moment immediately meaningful, productive, or shareable. It is to give life enough room to unfold before deciding what it has come to teach us.

There will always be time to find the angle, choose the words, and shape the narrative. Before we turn life into a story, however, we should first allow ourselves to live it.