I know this blog is suppose to be about my internship and professional carrier, but every once in a while you have to add in things that make you think. This book makes me think. This book makes me want to play my part in creating a better world.
I’ve been reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. I think it’s a good ideal of any aspiring writer to read this book. Or just anyone like me who dreams to much and sometimes does too little. (I think its part of my idealist “INFP” personality that makes me want to make the world a better place while never actually doing it.) I want to be a storyteller and I like journalism because it allows me to tell peoples stories. I want to be a fiction writer as well because it will allow me to tell the stories that constantly play in my head.
This book asked one simple and horrifying question: What type of story are you telling with your life?
Are you just floating along doing what needs to be done to survive day by day, or are you working towards something. Do you have a clear objective or goal of what you want at the end of the day? Is it really even about you, is it really even about now? I don’t think it always is.
Are you willing to take risk to play a role in your story.
Hear are some quotes from the book
“I live in fantasies. I live terrific lives in my head. It’s part of the creative imagination, to daydream, to invent stories. I didn’t know getting lost in daydreams was odd until I asked an old girlfriend what she daydreamed about. She answered ‘nothing.’
In the room where I’m writing today, nothing is happening. And later there will be laundry happening. I can’t deal with reality. It’s too real, too unromantic. But it occurred to me that other people’s stories were better than mine for the simple fact that they were actually happening. They were doing things with real people while I was typing words into a computer” - Donald Miller, a million miles in a thousand years
“I like the part of the Bible where God talks about speaking the world into existence. I feel written. My skin feels written, and my desires feel written. My sexuality was a word spoken by god, that I would be mail, and have brown hair and brown eyes. It feels like we are characters from a book. You can call it God or a coincidence, but I believe there is a writer outside ourselves, plotting a better story for us, interacting with us, and whispering his story into our consciousness. This voice seems to know the difference between right and wrong and the subtle difference between beautiful and profane.”
- Donald Miller, a million miles in a thousand years
“My desire to live a better story didn’t motivate me to do so. My life was a blank page, and all I was putting on that page were words. I kept sitting and writing more boring words into my life. When I wasn’t writing, I was watching television. A general rule in creating stories is that characters don’t want to change. Humans seek comfort and order, and when they find it they plant themselves, even if the comfort isn’t all that comfortable and they secretly want for something better.
Perhaps one of the reasons I’ve avoided having a clear ambition is the second you point towards something you know how much there is to lose. The most often repeated commandment in the bible is “do not fear.” It’s in there over 200 times. Before I realized we were suppose to fight fear I though it was something in us made to keep us safe. Then I saw it as a manipulative emotion that can keep us living a boring life.” - Donald Miller, a million miles in a thousand years
“You put your characters through hell. You put them through hell. That’s the only way we change.” - Donald Miller, a million miles in a thousand years
I've got to check into this book. Sounds like a good read.
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