Living a Better Story

Back in college a friend once asked me, “What’s your biggest fear?”

I remember my answer clearly. “I’m terrified that someday, I’ll be 90 years old, laying on my death bed and realize I’ve never done anything great in my life.”

Something within me way back then knew that life was meant to be something significant. And you’d think being able to articulate that at 20, that I’d be intentional about the things I’d do.

But maybe not.

I think perhaps at that age, we might all idealistically approach life that way,- That we are here for a purpose and our lives will make a difference.
But like so many others, I guess I thought that an exciting life would happen to me, while I was doing the routine, mundane, daily grind. The daily college life led to the daily career life.

Mondaytuesdaywednesdaythursdayfridaysaturdaysunday……lather, rinse, repeat.

Before I knew it, years had slipped by and nothing great had happened to me yet. Perhaps I would just need to wait a bit longer…..

Then I had my epiphany: I was bored in life.

While I loved my friends, my family, and even my teaching job, I recognized that if life was going to be exciting, I was going to have to make it exciting.
So, (much to my father’s chagrin) I sold off everything I owned, packed 4 suitcases and moved to Africa.

If you’d asked anyone around me, they would have all told you I was living this big, adventurous, life! I ran a large schooling program for AIDS orphans and vulnerable children! I slayed giant insects! I ate chicken intestines.

And while the years I lived in Africa were great and provided me (and you long-time readers) with some hilarious blog-fodder, after the initial excitement wore off, it was a new location to spend Monday thru Sunday.

Eventually I came home.

Now working and enrolled in grad school, …well, same thing, new city.

More years have passed….Early 30’s… Still nothing “great”.

So last February I read Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and it really spoke to me. It’s the only book I’ve ever read where I thought to myself, “…damn...I should’ve bought this instead of just checking it out at the library.”

I read half, and then started again from the beginning because it was too good not to. And while I finished the end chapters, and read through the second time, I also started at the beginning again. I had to have 3 bookmarks throughout the book to keep my place for my multiple readings.

It just made sense to me.

Maybe it’s his simplicity of writing, maybe because he’s talking about things from a writer’s perspective, maybe it’s because I see myself in him when he’s “living the life he always wanted” and still recognizes something is missing, but I could relate to it.

There’s a scene when he writes about living as a writer and making up stories for a living. Then one day he goes to a coffee shop and sees a couple with a family and it occurs to him that while He’s been making up stories, others have been living their stories.

I think that’s the part I started to tear up.

I recognize now that the life I’ve been desiring to have all along is not simply about doing stuff, or even having an adventure, but an living an intentional life. Yes inevitably, it will include the daily grind, and living this way is bound to bring about some adventures, but it’s caused me to reflect on what I actually want to start doing in the midst of my Monday thru Sunday.

A few months ago Donald Miller posted the “what if” challenge on his blog. I thought to myself,” What if my character stopped saving random cats, and started to progress the story forward?”

This is what I’ve been slowly moving towards,- focused on the thing that has been heavy on my heart. “What if I actually started reaching out to some of these teenage girls in class who are slipping through the social cracks? What if I broke that unspoken rule that students and adults don’t mix? What if I started being an influence in their lives? What if I gave them the chance to live a better story?” This is the direction I’ve started as a short term story.

So I’ve been really hoping to attend the Living a Better Story seminar (with Donald Miller) in Portland in September. I’m thinking that it would give me additional encouragement to continue in the direction I’ve started to baby step. Maybe it can help me lead these teens along the way.
At the same time it terrifies me. I told my best friend “I’d like to go to this seminar… but I’m afraid it will mess me up. I’m afraid I’ll be wrecked for the ordinary.”

But isn’t facing conflict the best part of the story? You’ll root for my character won’t you?

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.

.