As Julie Beck explores the effects of narrative arcs on an individual’s life, there are a few points that stick out to me and make me pause, take a minute, and really think about it. One example of this is right at the beginning of the article when Beck talks about how the way a person internally perceives their narrative. An event may happen one way, but the way they perceive it and tell it to the next person may be different. Personally, I feel like this statement is VERY obvious in our everyday lives! When you think about it, we are always saying “Well, that’s just their side of the story” because the way they experienced something may be different compared to someone else. Another point in the article that stuck out to me was when Beck mentioned the importance of communicating our stories with others. One important thing that she mentioned in that section was how the consequence to not telling someone your story is that you in return will not be given anything to think about or ponder on. This ultimately leads to a missed chance where growth could have occurred. I personally 100% agree with this section because sometimes people, including myself, are too scared to let our emotions out when really we are only making things worse by keeping them in. Lastly, Beck brought up the importance of finding the positive in negative situations. When reflecting back on negative situations, people often reflect on how badly they were hurt, what it did to their future, etc. In the midst of this, they miss out on, instead, elaborating on how this negative situation brought some level of self-identity into their life. The way they changed and grew from such an experience that they thought would beat them down. With just these three topics from the article, it is safe to say that I agreed with what Julie Beck had to say on an individual’s “Life’s Stories”.
I found all of your quotes very thought provoking, and I like how you kept them mostly with the theme of growing from experiences. I especially like your last quote selection, and I also agree with you on Beck’s ideas. We need to move on from past negative experiences, while still taking something positive away from it so we can learn and become better people.
I agree with all three points you had brought up and when reading them again it caused ideas in my head just from these points alone. I really agree with your last point you bring up about how emotions control the way we tell our story. I agree that it takes time for certain people to be able to see the good in a bad situation.
I, too, was inspired to read about the clear benefits of sharing one’s story. I think it can be difficult to share a story that doesn’t have a happy ending (as Beck also explains) but the benefits seem to weigh out. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!