This post started when I shared the following on Twitter:
4am, after laying awake reading “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
” If you are expecting a book review, this is not it. Perhaps when I finish the book I will do a video review of it. No, in this post I am going to ask you to tell your story.
Tell yours. That’s what I finally started doing here about a year ago. That’s about the time this blog stopped being a blog and became me telling my story. See the difference?
Blank Pages. There’s a point in A Million Miles In A Thousand Years when the author’s roommate tells him that, his story is a blank page, now tell your story. That’s when it hit me. A little over a year ago, I grabbed a fresh notebook and started to write my story instead of just living the one that kept popping up in front of me. This is the new story, not the same old one that had prevented me from achieving what I wanted to in life.
The old one. Sure the old story is still there. It’s like an old trashy romance novel sitting on your bookshelf. You remember reading it and realize it was not yours. You lived it but you didn’t write it. As you start telling your new story, it becomes the life you are living.
The new one. Mine is simple. Fill my brain with good and positive thoughts by the reading I do and the people I spend time with. Turn those thoughts into writing that may in some small way help others. Wash, rinse, repeat. See, you can decide to put down the old story anytime you want and start over? I know this to be true because I did.
The secret. You become what you think about. Your life is not a bunch of chance occurrences. There are no coincidences in your life. You don’t end up reading the books you read and spending time with the people you spend time with by accident. Nor is your life all planned out ahead for you (in my humble opinion). No, instead you make choices which become the words on the perviously blank pages that are your unique story.
Tell your story, your way. Live if your way. Share it your way.
I'm sitting here this morning…with coffee cup in hand…
Love this message, and this idea that the blank page is ours to write…and it's always there. What will we choose?
Jim, great post out of that reading, mid-stream like that. I was tempted to add: “Life's like a blank page, ya know…and you gotta, well, you gotta, write your own story” I could hear the author speak the words when you typed them here. Seriously though, what a great alternative to a biz book that one is, but then again, not so much.
And I agree, you do largely become what you think about…if you're willing to do the work. The hard work. 🙂
I just can't picture great writing happening without a cup of coffee/tea or a glass of red wine in hand….just works better for me that way 🙂
You quoted both Donald Miller and Jim Raffel is that comment….I suspect all without going back and looking at the quotes. I'm honored to be included in that company 🙂