Blog Post 11

In an interview with Ken MacArthur, a 54-year-old man from Boston, Massachusettes, he teaches us that his life was interrupted by an obstacle that would forever change his life story. In Julie Beck’s “Life’s Stories”, she emphasizes the point that life stories are supposed to show the world who you are and it is your personality. She discusses that your life story has important parts of your personality within it, and since everyone is so different, everyone has a different life story, or, a form of identity. As Beck states towards the end of her essay, “A life story is written in chalk, not ink, and it can be changed.” The morality behind this statement is that you are in charge of your story. If something terrible happens along the way, it is all up to you how you can change it by the way you respond, and that is exactly how Ken MacArthur changed his life. He states that “The next time you see someone that you don’t know, they are a person, and something has happened to them.” Ken used to work at a U-Haul facility, and a homeless man would always make such a mess of the units, so in return, Ken would be very rude to this man in hopes he would leave. The man, James Doiron, ended up getting evicted, but he has more of a story to his life that Ken did not know about. Ken was faced this awful situation, but the lesson that he learned from it determined his personality, and even though he couldn’t change what had happened, he changed the way he thought about it. I share both MacArthur’s and Beck’s beliefs considering they support each other. You are indeed in control of your life and you can “drive” it whichever route you decide. MacArthur truly rewrote his life story because he could have been destined to be depressed about this situation, but instead, he made light out of it.