My Life Is Becoming a Fish Story
The truth gets more elusive as I age
I’ve stopped giving advice to young people. They don’t listen anyway, and I’m not sure what I tell them is relevant to their lives. Because of technology, they have to deal with issues that didn’t exist when I was growing up.
I’m not sure I would even tell them the truth. I notice that as I age, my stories are becoming fish stories. You know, where the size of the fish you caught increases over time.
To be fair, exaggeration and elaboration were part of my life for decades. When I hosted a morning radio show, adding false details to make a story more compelling was a necessity, even if the story then became far from my reality. I would even take a side in an argument that wasn’t my viewpoint since people who agree on everything can be boring to listen to.
What’s interesting is hearing people do it in real life. I’ve listened to friends tell stories that don’t quite match what I remember since I was there. When this happens, I wonder whether I should correct them, yet I never have.
It seems we all do this occasionally, leaving me wondering why.
Maybe we just don’t remember how things really were. I’m not sure things were better when I was a kid, and as much as going back to being a teenager sounds…
