The Real Life

I'm not into corny motivational stickers, slogans, posters, or people. What I am into is finding out how to live a life that actually matters. In that context, I read Donald Miller's new book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years". I started it about this time last night, fell asleep, and then woke up and read it straight through to the end today. It's not often that I read a book that quickly, but I couldn't put it down. I'll spare you alot of the details because you should read it, for your own sake. One thing that Miller said that really stuck out to me was this: he said that if the things you do make for a boring life, you have a boring story. His thesis is that there is no excuse for anyone's life to be boring, in fact it shouldn't be anything less than amazing. Miller is a good writer, so that means that he articulated those sentiments in a far more engaging and exciting way than I did in my pseudo-quote of him. It also means that there was a lot of substance surrounding those claims that clarify their meaning. He doesn't mean that having a family and raising kids is boring, or that having a job is boring, but rather just the opposite. All of those situations are opportunities to either engage the present and get the most out of it or to lazily unplug from reality and float along mindlessly. The point is that his book, and that idea specifically, poured gasoline on the growing desire that I have had for the last few months to live a life that is really worth something and that is interesting and exciting (if only to me). I have some ideas about how to apply that to my everyday life, and I will post sometime in the near future about that. I also have some ideas about the bigger picture of my life for the next few years so here they are:

1. Move to Raleigh, learn programming/business/technology stuff, and find work doing that.
2. Move to Charlottesville sometime in the next year or two and be apart of the church plant that my home church is doing there.

I know, those things aren't as astounding to you perhaps as moving to Zimbabwe and getting a nipple ring, but its a start, and I've got time for that stuff. Zimbabwe and my nipples aren't going anywhere. I don't know where my adventures will end, but I do know that they will begin on July 12th when I move to Raleigh to start my apprenticeship (am I the only person in continentl America that is doing an apprenticeship?). Here's to the hope of a life well-lived.

Cheers.