Your great-grandmother couldn’t send a text or an email, but she had dozens of life skills we don’t often use today.

She knew how to build a fire. She could knit and sew her clothes. She likely grew and preserved food. And she would have been a better storyteller than you and I put together.

Our ancestors needed to tell stories to gain the trust and cooperation of others. But not only that, they told stories to make sense of their world and to share that understanding.

We still need stories and story skills in the present, more than we realise.

I was at an event last weekend where two Australian authors were in conversation. They shared a lot of wisdom, but the things I remember today are the stories.

The story about being stuck on a lonely train platform after dark and the one about witnessing the giant branch of a tree crash to the ground, almost killing someone.

What stories will you tell today and why will they matter to the people who hear them?

Image by Les Anderson