It's to the best of our knowledge from PRX.

How do you tell the story of your life?

Do you focus on accomplishment, meaning, hope, or on failure and loss?

Psychologists say telling a good life story can make you happier.

But when poet and musician Patty Smith sat down to write about her life, she chose

writing about nothing. Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine. For me, writing about nothing

means no agenda, no particular direction, no sense of responsibility to chronology, plot.

You know, it's like automatic writing in a way.

It could also be saying the same as writing about everything.

Oh, they belong to me.

I'm Anne Strange Hamps, and today, Patty Smith and the art of telling a life story.

You know those nights when you wake up at 3 in the morning, and you start thinking about all the ways you've failed in life?

All the things you didn't do, the promises you didn't keep, all the ways you screwed up.

That's like the opposite of a bedtime story.

Or maybe a bedtime story written by someone who hates you. I'm Anne Strain Champson. Today, on to the best of a bedtime story. Or maybe a bedtime story written by someone who hates you.

I'm Anne Strain Champson.

Today, on to the best of our knowledge,

we all have these negative stories we tell ourselves.

And the trick is learning how to change them, edit them,

because telling a better life story can actually change your life.

I was a freshman in college.

I was taking an introductory biology course,

...