Throughout life I've often struggled with “not seeing the wood for the trees”, but sometimes I think the rest of the world spends too much time doing the opposite and ignoring the trees completely. While focusing on the big picture is useful, this article is about the ways in which the macro can oversimplify the micro, and why this can have a real influence on how we think and behave towards others. One device that helps us unpack and interrogate this is story - and its big sister, narrative. We’ll look at narratives at the macro level; stories at the micro level; and how, while the former serves essentially to compress reality, working with the latter can help us expand it. The bigger implication of all this is that examining the micro could be useful for change at a personal, interpersonal and cultural level.