YOUR ORIGIN STORY

Identity Architecture

Within moments of speaking with you, I have a pretty good idea of where you’re from, how you were raised, and at least some of the formative places that shaped you. And I don’t mean where you live, but more specifically, where you’re from.

I’m always fascinated by the answer because it’s never simply a place.

Within a few sentences, people begin telling you far more than geography. They describe a small farming town, a city known for its food scene, a beach community, or they’ll tell you their mother was a professor, their father a diplomat, so they moved every few years. Whether their stories are told with pride or as a form of explanation, the answers always vary, but they reveal so much about the person behind the story.

I grew up in the South, in Tennessee, and I’d like to think it’s what gave me my warmth, my manners and my sense of hospitality. Being Southern is practically synonymous with being nice (although I promise there are exceptions!).

This very Southern characteristic wasn’t a lesson anyone sat me down and taught. It was simply the way you were expected to act in the world I was raised in. Looking back, I realize a few things about that. First, sometimes people behaved in ways that weren’t always consistent with who they really were. And second, I wasn’t just growing up in a place. The place was shaping-shifting me—and everyone else—in so many ways and into certain behaviors: being courteous, considerate and mannerly, a quiet code among good Southerners.

This is what I mean when I say “origin story.” I don’t mean one defining moment. I mean the place, or places, where your life first began taking shape—the people, traditions, neighborhoods, communities and ways that they formed you long before you realized they were doing it.

HOMETOWN DNA

Genetics: Place Or Parents?

DNA and genetics are things we hear a lot about. We attribute everything from our eye color to our personality, our temperament and even aspects of our health to what we’ve inherited. But have you ever considered the possibility that your hometown has a kind of DNA too?

Well, as odd as it might sound, how could a place possibly have DNA? In many ways, it does.

Psychologists have been studying it for years. They call it place identity—the idea that where we grow up becomes part of who we are. There’s also something called place attachment, which suggests we develop emotional bonds with places long before we understand why.

I love both ideas because they explain something we all intuitively know to be true. Home doesn’t simply give us memories. It leaves an imprint.

Long before we develop behaviors or opinions of our own, we’re absorbing thousands of cues, big and small, about how life works from the people and places we come from. We learn whether it’s perfectly natural to wave to—or simply acknowledge—a stranger as you pass them, or whether you hurry by. Whether people you know are welcome to stop by your house without notice, or if they wait for an invitation.

Even more incredibly, we can sometimes glean whether ambition is celebrated or modesty admired, whether families tend to stay close to home or encourage their children to explore the world. Whether community is built around church, school, sports or something entirely different.

Parents certainly raise us. But places raise us too. It’s no wonder we form such strong emotional connections to them during these formative years. Whether our feelings for the places we come from are rooted in comfort, complexity or something in between, there are so many influences shaping us.

DEFINE NORMAL

You Are What You Know

I think one of the most fascinating things about childhood—and really, all the years we’re growing up—is that, for the most part, whatever our life is, it’s our normal. Our experiences, conventions and rituals are largely all we know, so we normalize them. In doing so, they quietly become our definition—and our perception—of what normal is.

As children, we don’t compare yet. We absorb. We assume our family, our neighborhood, our traditions and our routines are simply how the world works because we have nothing else to measure them against.

As we grow older, particularly in our teenage years, we begin to see other families and other ways of living. We catch glimpses of different environments within the very communities we were raised in, and it’s here that our perspective begins to widen. We start forming ideas about the kind of life we’d like for ourselves, perhaps even exercising our first real sense of agency over how we want to live.

But as children, we are what we know.

For me, normal meant moving.

My parents divorced when I was young, and my mother raised my sister and me. We moved often, changed schools several times and, as a result, I became remarkably independent. I often joke that I was born an adult because I naturally assumed responsibilities far beyond my years. But at the time, none of it felt unusual. It was simply my life.

It wasn’t until college, when I met friends from all over the country—and really, the world—from every kind of upbringing, that I realized my definition of normal wasn’t everyone’s definition of normal. Mine wasn’t wrong, and theirs wasn’t right. We simply had very different origin stories.

Many of my friends came from more structured—dare I say, traditional—families. Their parents were still together. They had childhood friends, deep community roots and different religious traditions. Several had grown up in—and still lived in—the very same house. It was a kind of stability I had never experienced. Their childhood felt foreign to me in much the same way I’m sure mine felt to them.

Our earliest experiences become the baseline from which we interpret everything else. They shape what feels familiar, what feels safe, what we expect from relationships, how much responsibility we naturally assume and even the choices we make as adults.

Looking back, I can also see how much of my own life I navigated independently, including decisions about my education and the path I would eventually take. Had my circumstances been different, perhaps my life would have been too. Then again, who can ever really know? Our experiences shape us in ways we often don’t recognize until much later. I don’t regret mine. They’re part of the reason I’m the person I am today.

At the same time, perspective matters. Even as I came to understand that my upbringing may have been my normal, it certainly wasn’t the norm for many of my friends. I also recognized how fortunate I was compared with countless others whose childhoods carried far greater hardship than my own. I never lost sight of that, and I think that’s the real lesson.

The goal isn’t to compare origin stories. It’s simply to recognize that every one of us begins with a different definition of normal. And once we understand that, we begin to understand ourselves—and each other—a little better.

Normal, like perspective, is always relative.

EDIT

The Parts We Keep

If our hometown gives us our first definition of normal, then perspective gives us something equally valuable: the ability to see it for what it is.

As children, we simply inherit. As adults, we begin to evaluate.

Time, experience and the people we meet along the way become extraordinary teachers. We discover there are countless ways to raise a family, build a career, define success, celebrate holidays and create a meaningful life. Every new place and every new person has the potential to expand us—and all can change how we experience the world. It doesn’t require that we abandon where we came from, it just invites us to see it differently.

That, to me, is one of life’s greatest gifts.

Perspective doesn’t ask us to reject our origin story. It asks us to understand it.

Over time, we begin to recognize the qualities we’re grateful to have inherited. Perhaps it’s kindness, resilience, hospitality, curiosity, independence or a strong work ethic. We also begin to notice the habits, beliefs and expectations that no longer feel like our own. One of the great privileges of growing up is realizing we’re allowed to keep the parts that serve us—and let go of the ones that don’t. Both are valuable discoveries.

Growing up isn't simply collecting more experiences, though that's both a wonderful and inevitable part of life. It's also looking back on the experiences we've had with greater clarity.

For me, Tennessee gave me warmth, hospitality and an appreciation for making people feel welcome. New York taught me resilience and possibility. London deepened my appreciation for ritual, history and the quiet beauty of everyday life. None erased the others. They simply broadened my perspective and gave me more to draw from.

I think that’s true for all of us.

Every place we live, every person we love and every experience that changes us offers something worth carrying forward. The real gift isn't keeping everything. It's recognizing what deserves a permanent place in the architecture of who we are.

THE STORY OF YOU

Writing The Next Chapter

I say this a lot, and I really believe it: knowing where you’ve been is key to knowing where you’re going.

Not because our past determines our future, but because it helps explain us. To others and to ourselves. It reveals the people, places and experiences that first, and later, shaped our lives. It reflects our values, sheds light on our instincts and helps others understand our perspective. Even our definition of normal.

Each of us has the opportunity to take our origin story and write the chapters that follow—to thoughtfully edit, expand and enrich our lives through every meaningful relationship, every place we visit or live, every lesson we learn and every perspective we gain.

We don’t get to choose where the story begins, but we do have a remarkable say in how it unfolds.

The richest lives I know aren’t necessarily the ones that have traveled the furthest or accumulated the most. They’re the ones that remain curious enough to keep learning from every place and every experience, determined to keep evolving while never forgetting where they came from.

They understand that perspective is one of life’s greatest gifts, and that growth doesn’t require leaving our beginnings behind. It simply asks us to build upon them.

Write what comes next. x