Quickthink

A while back, I read that building non-cognitive skills helps produce a number of positive characteristics. One of them is resilience.

I began to wonder, “How resilient am I as a person?” I thought about my life story. I had to admit that while I believe in my inner strength, I have also disappointed myself more than once by not bouncing back from difficulty. Hmmm … could I use some resilience building?

After watching Jane McGonigal’s TED talk, I think that we all can use this. Not just to become more resilient in general but to understand the various forms of resilience and how they contribute to better living.

Enjoy!

In the bad old days, we were given our stories by media. Ooops. Now that I think about it, we still are. But something is changing. It may be a little thing, but it may be the start of something big. We are seeing more stories about story telling and story tellers. And there is a growing recognition of the value of story telling in building community.

With that growing recognition, there is a growing interest in how to tell stories better. Jonah Sachs is pretty good at this “how to” stuff. I recommend his article for FC on using freaks, familiars and cheats. And I will buy a copy of his Story Wars for summer reading.

I had mixed feelings reading about Nora Ephron’s farewell party. On the one hand, it felt uncomfortably like the farewell party to an era. The NYT writes that she was

… the writer and filmmaker … who made hits like “Sleepless in Seattle” and “When Harry Met Sally.”

Well, these were hits quite some time ago.

On the other hand, I have the sense that the values that Nora championed have won out — especially her sense of humor. We have incorporated her stories into our own. So this comment seems apt

“She was proud of her work, and she should be.”

I like the sound of that.