Every now and then, I meet someone who tells me, “Bob, I wish I could write too.” I look at them and smile, because what I really want to say is, “You can.”
You see, there’s a story in everyone. In the vegetable vendor who wipes sweat off her forehead with the same hand that counts coins. In the office clerk who stays late to type someone else’s report and goes home to a hungry child. In the retired soldier who stands at the gate, looking into the sunset and thinking of comrades he has lost in battle. Each one carries a story — not written, but lived.
The problem isn’t that people don’t have stories. It’s that they don’t pause long enough to listen to their own. We’ve made our lives so noisy that the quiet voice of memory is drowned out.
That voice which says, “Remember the time you fell and got up?” or “Remember the time you believed in yourself, when others didn’t?”
That’s your story whispering, waiting to be told.
To bring it out, you don’t need perfect grammar or fancy words. You need honesty. Write not to impress, but to express. Tell it as you felt it — the fear, the laughter, the tears, the triumph.
When you write that way, even the simplest story becomes powerful.
And here’s a secret — you don’t always have to write it. You can tell it to a grandchild at bedtime, to a friend over coffee, or even to yourself in the mirror. Every time you do, you remind yourself that you’ve lived through something worth sharing.
When I began writing, I didn’t start with grand ideas. I started with what I saw — a traffic cop wiping his face under a red light, a beggar smiling with half a biscuit, a mother teaching her son to pray. Those were the stories that became Bob’s Banter.
Sometimes, when I sit to write, I imagine that the whole world is a book, and each person I meet is a chapter waiting to be read. Some are thrillers, some are comedies, some are tragedies. But all are real. And if you read them with empathy, you’ll see that no one’s life is ordinary. Every scar, every smile, every silence has meaning.
So don’t wait for the perfect moment or the perfect sentence. The story in you is not waiting for your grammar to improve. It’s waiting for your courage to speak. And maybe, just maybe, when you finally tell it, the world will pause for a moment and say, “Ah, that’s my story too.”
Because in the end, the only difference between a writer and a reader is that the writer dares to tell what both have lived…!
The Author conducts an online, eight session Writers and Speakers Course. If you’d like to join, do send a thumbs-up to WhatsApp number 9892572883 or send a message to bobsbanter@gmail.com
