Our Stories Disclose in a General Way…

“Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now.”

My emphasis on general way. What does it mean to disclose your story in a general way?  Most people would say it means you do not need to go into grim, microscropic details of your every bad act.  I remember this very issue came up at a meeting in NYC.  The story had really made the rounds about a young guy who had shared how he had robbed at gunpoint a convenience store not far from that very meeting room.  There was another guy in that room: one who had this terrifying, life-changing experience of facing death in the from of a big gun stuck in his face as he was robbed in his store.  The kid was confessing to the very same robbery. What do you think happened?

Needless to say this is an extreme example, but it does make the point that stories are not meant to be a catalog of your sins in such detail that someone else in the room could write your biography.