Nothing in the facts moved. Only the arc did, and with it, who Sam becomes and how the whole life reads. That is narrative identity: across studies, people who tell the redemptive version, bad turning to good, themselves as the author, tend to report higher wellbeing than those who tell the contaminating one (McAdams et al., 2001). Three honest catches keep this from being a slogan. The growth telling has to be true to the facts; forcing "it was all for the best" over real loss or injustice is denial, not health. The cause runs both ways: a growth story may lift you, or feeling well may make it easier to tell. And the tidy redemption arc is partly a cultural, very American, ideal, not the only healthy shape a life can take. You can re-author what your past means. You cannot, and should not, rewrite what it was.