"It didn’t occur to me at the time, but it’s obvious now that in creating the fictional Don, I was creating the person I wanted to be, the person worth telling stories about. It never occurred to me that I could re-create my own story, my real life story, but in an evolution I had moved toward a better me."
- A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, page 29
"And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can’t go back to being normal; you can’t go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time."- A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, page 155
Living a good story isn’t easy. Miller explains a good story has a character that pursues a great ambition, takes risks, makes sacrifices, and struggles, then finds value, meaning, and joy in their pain. We’re designed to seek comfort, affirmation, order, and security. In a good story, we need an inciting incident to force a character to endure hardship. Familiarity is comfortable, and hope is tempting. Even in adverse situations people fear change and avoid it until they are forced to alter their path.
We don’t need to wait for an inciting incident to force us to change. We can imagine ourselves doing the things that are important to us, projects that support our values, work that makes a positive impact, and connecting with supportive people. The magic begins when we start doing things to achieve these goals. To start, we need to overcome our fear of failure and understand how adversity creates value in our lives.
"I asked Bob what was the key to living such a great story, and Bob seemed uncomfortable with the idea he was anything special. But he wanted to answer my question, so he thought about it and said he didn’t think we should be afraid to embrace whimsy. I asked him what he meant by whimsy, and he struggled to define it. He said it’s that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if we are only willing to take a few risks."- A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, page 167
It’s easy to passively hope for something better or tell ourselves that we could do it if we wanted. Ambition is scary because we’re compelled to try and possibly fail. Fear disappears, we become empowered when we believe life could be magical if only we take a few risks. The theme of the story changes from avoidance of failure to the wonder of living.
I had not thought about embracing whimsy. I’ve experienced inciting incidences that stirred up my life and sent it on a new trajectory, and I’ve learned to appreciate life and spend my time with people and projects that give me a sense of value and meaning. I’m still usually risk averse. I don’t want to lose what I’ve gained. I like the idea of approaching risk with playful acceptance and seeing magic in unexpected or unpredictable changes.
"Suffering, as absurd as it seemed, pointed to a greater story in which, if one would only construe himself as a character within, he could find fulfillment in his tragic role, knowing the plot was heading toward redemption. Such an understanding would take immense humility and immeasurable faith, a perspective perhaps achieved only in the context of near hopelessness."- A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, page 196
In this excerpt, Miller is referring to Victor Frankl’s papers written after surviving Nazi concentration camps where he lost his wife. Great suffering requires you to choose to play the role of victim or hero. Those who grow from tragedy prefer the hero narrative, and they find meaning and joy in the big picture in spite of personal discomfort and instability. Most of us will never experience that degree of suffering, but we can benefit from Frankl’s perspective. The search for meaning is motivation in itself. We would choose pain instead of life with no purpose.
Miller talks about how a good story is a condensed version of life with all the trivial stuff removed. The best stories have a lot of suffering, and the characters life is at stake—this is where we find meaning. I think sometimes we create conflict and drama in the meaningless interludes between disasters to assert our value. We don’t feel compelled to take risks that produce real meaning because we’ve satisfied our needs in a way that feels safe. In the end, we haven’t fooled ourselves, and we feel empty and discontent. We haven’t dared to live a good story.
Throughout the book, Miller relates his discoveries and insights from his incredible journeys. At one point he recalls he thought, “It hurts now, but I’ll love this memory.” The price of joy in life is enduring the pain, and we should embrace it, without the pain life feels meaningless. It’s easier to take risks when we think of them as magical transformers of life. When we look back at our experiences, we’ll see how they changed us and how we found meaning, purpose, and value in our lives.
Donald Miller is the CEO of StoryBrand and every year helps more than 3,000 business leaders clarify their brand message. Combined, Don’s books have spent more than a year on the New York Times Bestsellers list. His books include: Blue Like Jazz, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and Scary Close.
