In the article “Life’s Stories,” Julie Beck covers many topics. The three topics that she mentioned that stood out the most to me were explaining what exactly a life story is, the connection that different life stories have according to the persons age, and lastly cultural stories that are embedded as blueprints for life are often unrealistic. First, Beck explains in detail what a life story is. Take for example “a life story doesn’t just say what happened, it says why it was important, what it means for who the person is, for who they’ll become, and for what happens next.” The way a person tells life stories can really show their personality and attitude towards life. Then, Beck talks about the fact that age can effect life stories. Beck agrees with McAdams when he believes that through life, people are actors, agents then authors. He considers younger children to be actors because they have personality traits, roles to play and they interact with the world, however thy do not make decisions with the hopes of producing desired outcomes. This decision making doesn’t come until they are old enough to have goals which is when McAdams considers them to be agents. Then when a person is older they are considered authors because they group ideas about the future with experiences from the past in order to form a narrative. The last topic that Beck mentioned that really stood out to me in the article was that the blueprints that are embedded in culture and children believe is how their life will go however they  are often unrealistic. Beck calls these stories blueprints in which “is your standard ‘go to school, graduate, get a job, get married, have kids.'” However life doesn’t always work out in this “arc of life” that these cultural stories try to embed in peoples minds. “They stigmatize anyone who doesn’t follow the to a T, and provide unrealistic expectations of happiness for those who do.”