Example Reflection – Storytelling

Storytelling helps in explaining the interconnections among people of various  backgrounds in different situations and settings, teaching broad lessons that  engage human beings as listening engages people. Stories generate plethora of  questions and questions expand the breadth and depth of stories, leading to a  lot of innovative thoughts and ideas. Storytelling becomes an important tool for  feedback, which is the basis of the iterative process of prototyping that lead to  solutions. Stories and prototypes are intertwined, explaining and repositioning  experiences through a multitude of potential interpretations, which allow  researchers to test new solutions before committing exclusively to a particular  policy, program, or service.

This is a story of a 19-year old boy who was in his first year of bachelor’s degree.  Unlike his classmate he was handicapped, shy, low self-steamed and always  molested, teased by his peers. Although he has a good academic background  but he seems like a hopeless guy who was introvert and bullied by a lot of people  around him. Meeting with this person I was not able to understand what is going  on in his mind. Just a leg injury has taken his happiness away or there is anything  else hidden in his heart.

I speak to him, made him as my friend, tries to make him speak, make him lighter  and around three months it took him to be comfortable and he started sharing  his thoughts with me. I was also sharing my life stories in order to help him to  visualize a state of independence, I use his feedback against the context of my  story to ascertain his goals, and sometimes we use stories to better understand  our interests and thought processes. I use this information to develop different  strategies to try and find a way that works for him and for many other people to  gain more independence in the areas they find lacking in their lives.

Slowly and slowly I tried to inspire him with a lot of inspiring thoughts, stories  and given a lot of biographies and autobiographies of successful personalities  most of them were physically challenged. Just giving him a ray of hope and  telling that life is so big, so many things are around to do for you as an individual  and for others made him to see life in broader prospective. Today he is working  in a multinational company.

So, I used a lot of stories for motivating him, sometimes a little story can do  wonders and bring success and smile in many faces. This man story can also be  inspiring too, especially, for few of the less privileged.

I am an engineering student; I learn here a lot!

