A subway car in New York is the world without its filters. No long suburban drive before you encounter another human being, no buffer, no managed approach, no way to prepare. The encounter is immediate and unmediated.
Some people approach it the way they approach a medical procedure, angling for minimum impact. They clutch their bags, find a corner, look at their phones, managing the safe distance between themselves and everything else going on inside the car.
One day, I decided to go against this impulse and walk the entire length of the train to take it in. In one car, I bought M&Ms from an immigrant mother with two small children in tow, selling snacks from a bag with the focus of a serious small business owner. Near her, a man in a suit — Wall Street, unmistakably — whose face held the particular agony of believing he is personally responsible for holding the world together. Two boys with hockey sticks and gear bags, sweaty and electric from a game, taking up the space of six adults. In the corner, a young woman dressed in color as if she’d arrived from another century, past or maybe future, sitting with the absolute ease of someone who doesn’t question her right to exist exactly as she is.
Then, when I thought this was a lot for the day, a musician slash comedian entered the train. He was — there is no gentle way to say this — not very good. He played something that looked like an instrument and told jokes that sounded like they were supposed to be funny. He had a little plastic propeller on top of his head, which almost gave it away. The train stopped between stations, the air getting less, the space getting smaller, passengers staring at the floor, sharing the discomfort together in a particular New York silence. Then, for a moment, he stopped his torment of us and said:
Look, people. I can keep going, or you can make a contribution and I’m done.
The car exploded. Not polite laughter — real laughter, the kind that releases something held too long. Even the Wall Street guy cracked a smile. For a moment, strangers looked at each other, faces beaming: We survived this together.
That is the subway. It cries, laughs, stinks, and stings.
Loosened up, strangers started talking. Five minutes, maybe ten, of unrestrained honesty. I had mine with a mom holding her baby. We were quiet; she shifted the baby on her hip; I made a face the baby liked. We nodded at each other across the aisle as if we’d known each other a long time, knowing we belonged to each other in this moment and in this lifetime.
The subway is not a commute. The subway is a privilege. What is really going on is our stories taking a brief ride together.
Five ways in
On the subway, you catch a stranger’s story for a few stops, then it’s gone. But there’s one story you ride with the whole way — every stop, every year — and it’s the one most of us find it hard to turn to: our own. That story leads to new beginnings, a new job, a new role, a project, an adventure — or the close of one — handing off what you built, a legacy to leave, a loss or a hard season, the work you’re doing in therapy. Whatever the threshold, the aim is the same: not the story that sums you up, but the one that transforms you — the one that gives you ground to stand on and wind in your sails. Here are five ways in.
1. Hear your story first. Great stories come from listening, not performing. Resist the highlight reel. Skip the polished list of accomplishments. Underneath all of it is a life that actually happened, with its fumbles and quiet miracles and long afternoons that changed everything. That is the story worth telling.
2. Find your witness. Stories come to life when humans talk to other humans. Tell it to a camera, and you will sound like a performer. Tell it to AI, and it will read as AI-generated, because it is. The human ear shapes the human story. It always has. Find people who listen so well that you forget you are being listened to, and then watch what comes out of you.
3. Do it for real. You are beautiful, your life is beautiful, and your story can be beautiful too, if you are willing to be honest. Here is the strange math of storytelling: the ordinary, difficult, and unresolved chapters are what make a life worth reading. The cracks let the light in. A polished story is forgettable. A true one is not.
4. Pick the fruit while it’s ripe. Nothing can change your past, present, and future except your story. Most people live inside their story without ever stepping back to see its shape, its weight, its gifts. Don’t let your story die on the vine. The fruit is ripe. Pick it and offer it to yourself and the people you love, while you still can.
5. Have an experience. The discovering, the crafting, the sharing: these matter as much as the story itself. It should be an experience. It should fill you and the people you love with gratitude, humor, maybe some tears, and the kind of awe that makes you sit quietly afterward, unable to speak.
Before these five fade into good ideas, sit with one question: of all the stories you carry, which one is ripe — the one that’s ready, urgent, or already overdue?
Let’s make a room for that larger telling that matters now. Harvest Your Story is a free, two-hour workshop for anyone standing at a threshold: starting something, ending something, or sensing a season turn before you can name it. You’ll get a first taste of being heard — the thing no résumé, no status update, and no AI can give you.
Monday, October 5 · 12–2 PM ET · Live on Zoom · Free · Twenty seats
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