My favorite part of Beck’s essay is when she says “The uncertainty of the future makes people uncomfortable, and stories are a way to deal with that” (Beck). This part of the essay made me take note and really think about my personal experiences. Personally I get extremely uncomfortable when thinking deep into the future and creating possible outcomes and creating stories can help organize my thoughts and feelings towards life and the future.
Another part of the essay that I loved was when Beck discuses what she calls “autobiographical reasoning”. To me this is self reflection that helps you identify things that made you grow and things that really shaped who you are today. Personally I have done some of my own self reflection and it is has been helpful in understanding myself and my actions and what has made me the person I am today. Things such as the choices I have made or the experiences I have had that have left a mark on me.
Something that stuck with me after reading this essay was the idea of the embedded blueprints for stories. America’s blueprint of “‘going to school, graduate, get a job, get married, have kids'” (Beck). I see this happening in my life because it is what we are taught that works for the masses. There are so many factors that can prevent these goals from even being attainable. The discussion about life’s blueprints and how they shape what we do and who we are really impacted me and my thoughts about life.
With this essay I was able to create text to self a lot and text to world with topics such as the blueprint America has embedded in our culture. This essay was truly powerful and really had an impact.
I liked when you talked about the idea of embedded blueprints and I missed that in the article so I thought that was really interesting!
You did a really good job making connections from Beck’s article to your life. I feel like you hit really solid points in your blog and added quotes to really specify. Your observations were really good and personally, I didn’t think to talk about those points.