One of the things I love about getting my news now via the Times Reader is that, unlike when I read the paper edition, I’m able to immediately click on the links that are highlighted.

Reading an inside scoop about the director of the hit movie “The Help”—Tate Taylor–I did just that. I clicked on the blue lettered hyperlink in the sentence that said “the director Chris Columbus, a producer of “The Help,” was eventually dispatched to be a full-time on-set babysitter.” How diminishing must that have felt? To be directing your first feature film and having someone watching over your shoulder the whole time. I wanted to know more.

The link sent me to an article from the Wall Street Journal entitled “How An Author’s Best Friend Turned ‘The Help’ Into a Movie.” Getting juicier. I’ll let you read the whole piece, but what really made me happy–having seen the movie and knowing that it was a huge hit–was Taylor’s “biggest takeaway from the whole experience”:

What’s meant the most to me in this whole process is that people I don’t know sending me letters and emails saying “I was about to quit the business. It’s changed so much. It’s so jaded. It’s so economically driven. The art has been lost. And I heard what happened with you and your friends and Kathryn and DreamWorks…and I am refueled.”

Our personal struggles and triumphs serve as a power of example to all those watching. I take great heart from this story of how two friends (kind of like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney) got together and put on a show. They overcame enormous challenges and were generous enough to share their story. Does that make you feel just a tad better about what you’re struggling with today?