"It Was Only Necessary To Sacrifice Everything"

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

This week, I’m sharing my favorite ideas from “A Million Miles In A Thousand Years”, an amazing book by Donald Miller. It’s a non-fiction book that speaks to how we should think of our lives as stories to be lived, making them more meaningful in terms of how we live it, and how we (and others) will remember ourselves as we grow older and when we eventually leave. This is Day 4.

“…I began thinking about story as a guide for life…It wasn’t necessary to win for the story to be great, it was only necessary to sacrifice everything.”

The point about life as story is that it forces us to think about what would make for a meaningful life for ourselves, so that the story we’ll ultimately tell about it will be one we’ll be proud of.

One important aspect of this view is that there’s no judgement as to what the nature of that story should be, it’s magnitude, or how conventional or unconventional it is. That’s down to us and what we decide is important. Yes, social media leads us to specific views as to what this “should be” but hopefully it’s clear that that’s a false and fruitless pursuit. Our stories are our own and hence the estimation of their value should be ours as well.

The other important aspect is that, while we can decide what our story should be and we are the only judges as to it’s value, the one point that shouldn’t be up for debate is that we’ve given all we could have in pursuit of that story.

I don’t think there’s any objective standard for what this means but I do believe that we - ourselves - can tell. We can tell when we’ve made the effort, when we’ve been consistent in making that effort and when we’ve let ourselves down.

I think when we’ve done that - when we’ve done all we can, and I do think (deep down) we can tell that - we can be proud, regardless of wherever we’ve ended up.