Storyline Blog

Recently I was on a plane, reading a book, and I started crying.

I’m not much of a crier most of the time. I have my moments, of course, like anyone; usually in private. But I’m typically not the girl who cries in movie theaters or over hallmark commercials or even (in public) over well-written books. So of course it came as a huge surprise on the plane when the tears began to come and I realized, no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t going to be able to will them away.

Oh no, not this now, I thought to myself […]

A while ago I stumbled upon an amazing video of a guy in New York seeing a limited edition train for the first time.

May sound irrelevant to you and me, but this guy is absolutely obsessed with trains and it makes for one of funniest videos I’d seen in a long time. […]

A few weeks ago Donald Miller talked about the most important question you can ask yourself: What if?

It is an encouraging and forward-thinking question. It got me thinking what if I asked that question more often and asked this one less: What could have been? It’s the question that turns your head back to look at your past. To re-think it, to wonder what would have been different had you… What could have been better had you… Where you would be living now if you had just… Who you would be with if you hadn’t…

Not long ago a study was released explaining kids are negatively affected when we tell them they’re good at something. It sounds crazy, I know, but the article said if we say to our kids they’re good musicians or good athletes, they feel an enormous amount of pressure to live up to the expectations we’ve unknowingly set. The study found kids are much better off if we say great job scoring that goal or you sounded really good in practice today. The difference, the study suggested, is we’re praising what a kid did rather than praising his or her identity based on select criteria. In other words, when we say you’re a good musician what the kid hears is you only matter if you’re a good musician and you should fear losing that status but when we say you sounded great in practice today what the kid hears is you sounded great in practice today, nothing more and nothing less. Their identity has nothing to do with whether they’re a good musician or not.