*This post is an entry in the 2nd Stratejoy Essay Contest.  Throughout the next month, we will be featuring each finalist writing their answer to the question: What would your TED Talk Be? On September 13th, we will open the voting to YOU, our community, to select the winner of the $500 prize.*

*THE SINGLE STORY*

“Did you see lions outside your window?” my classmates would ask whenever I told them I had just arrived from Nigeria. “Did you live in a straw hut?” Shaking my head, “No. We drove cars, ate food, and watched television.” “Oh. Really?” Oh, really! Indeed. Where were these whacky ideas coming from? After years of pondering, I rationalized that my American classmates were raised to view Africa as, first of all, a single country. Second of all, a place one goes to only in pursuit of exotic animals or as a saviour to unfortunate dark peoples.

This is what I call a “super story”.  A super story is the hash description of a person, place, or thing that may or may not be based on truth. Most people dislike them because they can easily turn into stereotypes. My problem with super stories is that they are incomplete. Super stories may or may not be based on truth, but they are certainly based on just one point of view. They present only one perspective or one aspect of that person, place or thing. In my family’s native language, Igbo, super stories would be called “akuko”. When you hear an akuko, you take it with a grain of salt. You question its validity.

My classmates did not. The akuko my classmates had heard left no room to view my trip to Africa as a trip to my family’s home. They couldn’t comprehend that a fellow intelligant, financially stable classmate should be grouped into their conception of who Africans are. They’ve never heard a story of Africa from the perspective of an African — only from American cartoons, movies and charity commercials. This is how the story is created. When you show a people as just one thing over and over again, that is what they become and that’s when you know you’ve bought into the akuko.

Admittedly, I was guilty of believing in akuko stories. I’m not just talking about stereotypes I believed of people from other cultures and nations, either. I believed an akuko story of myself.

When I was born abroad, my parents thought something about me was strange, so they took me to a doctor to investigate. A few tests later, the doctors informed my parents that I was mentally retarded. I was to have the mental capacity of someone half my age for the rest of my life.

Even though my special ed teacher urged my parents to remove me from their program and put me in a gifted and talented program, the super story of me being “different” prevailed. My mom often told me I was “abnormal”.

My outside world living in America didn’t teach me the Nigerian traditions I was expected to maintain at home, so I was scolded for handling items with my left hand, not preparing meals, and taking large portions before my parents. Academically, I didn’t measure up either. Competing against other brilliant students in G&T programs, I felt merely mediocre. The super story I bought into was “I can’t do anything right because I’m different. I can never be good enough.” I thought it was in my nature to do things wrongly and to fail. I thought it was in my very being to never be good enough for anything I wanted. I told this story to myself over and over again, finding evidence in my daily life to prove that it was true.

It affected everything I did. I was constantly pulling back on my reigns because I believed if I stepped out too far, I’d inevitably cause disaster. Every decision was consciously and subconsciously influenced by the super story I held onto so tightly. I didn’t apply to certain universities because “I’m not good enough to get in” or “I’m not smart enough to fit in there.” I never tried out for the drill team because “I wouldn’t be good enough to make the team, no matter how much I practice.”

In college, my akuko was broken because I was away from my mom, old peers, and anything I used as evidence to feed my akuko. For the first time, I was able to make friends and meet like-minded people on my own terms. I was thusly exposed to a new story, a new perspective, on who I was. The stories had more to do with how many things I did right and how being ‘yourself’ is key to success. I was able to find evidence for the new stories, breaking the akuko spell. The lack of story affected the things I did just as much as having a story did. These days, however, instead of seeing dance auditions and thinking “I’m not good enough”, I think “How can I fit that into my schedule?”

This is how a super storys broken. Add to one’s understanding of something a different perspective over and over again. A broken akuko leads to freedom — “inwere onwe”. My classmates no longer ask me if lions snuck their way into my living room in Nigeria because by now, they’d been exposed to the vast stories of Africa. Not to mention the amount of outraged protesting that arises when someone says something like that these days in the 2010’s! Pardon my old-lady-talk, but back in my day, there was no one defending me from the ignorance of others. There was no one defending me from the ignorance of myself.

Just as these stories can create stereotypes that make relationships with others tense, the story you’ve created for yourself can make the way you live life less than inspiring. Is there something you’re holding back from trying out? Or something you’re not accomplishing because you have a story you’re telling yourself that needs a new perspective? Say them out loud. They may sound just as ridiculous as “She wakes up to lions outside her window!” Chose to see the story a different way and take your first steps to attaining inwere onwe.

*ABOUT UDOKA*

Udo is a culturally defiant dance artist, blogger, and applying for graduate school (in the field of Nutrition). She also just recently joined the yoga bandwagon (about time!).

She gets goosebumps when working on multi-faceted, creative collaborative work. She lovingly interrogates everything, always keeps aesthetics in mind, & applauds action toward new ideas