Personal narratives help to shape identity and find out who we truly are. In Natalie’s narrative presentation, her roommate recounted her 15-day canoeing and hiking trip that she endured by herself. In her story, she recalls how accomplished she felt during that trip, as she was climbing mountains and canoeing 12 miles a day, all with no help or contact with her family. When asked how this impacted her character, she responded with how her identity was found on this trip, as she remembers, “before this, I was whatever people told me I was.” Being alone on that trip with no contact with family or friends, she got to learn more about herself as who she is instead of who everyone else wanted her to be. She spent so much time with herself that she really got to connect with what was inside, to build her personal narrative. To further explain, senior editor for The Atlantic Julie Beck presents the idea of how influences affect the stories we tell about ourselves. According to Beck, “The way people recount experiences to others seems to shape the way they end up remembering those events.” To Natalie’s roommate, she remembers all of her past experiences prior to her canoeing and hiking adventure as being whatever other people wanted her to be. She was telling us that her life before was whatever people told her she was, that she didn’t have a story that she could tell people to help them understand her, but rather other people got to tell her story for her. Now that she has gone on this trip of hiking and canoeing and self-identity she can now tell her own story in her own words. She has been able to create this personal narrative to help others, including herself, understand who she is.