A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

You are a character. This life is your story.

What a powerful thought.

Donald takes us with him as he reflects on life and meaning when he is told that his real life is boring...and realizes the profound opportunity that we have for following God and our dreams.

Get off the couch. Try something crazy. Make memories. Share life with others. Be peaceful.

It's so interesting to reread certain books at different parts in your life. I remember being so impacted by this book the first time I read it, close to when it first came out (which is more than 10 years ago now!). I still appreciate the concept of living your life as a better story, and I've even adapted that into my own life motto. But I'm not as charmed by Miller's writing as I once was. I noticed a lot more misogyny in his writing; or perhaps that's too strong of a word, but women and girls were often tools in the storytelling rather than fully realized characters themselves. I think I can appreciate this book as a good resource to help remind me of using my life to tell a better story, but I can also leave it at that.

I love the power of a personal vision, story or goal. Whether in a job or my personal life, I feel lost without one. Donald Miller comes at this idea from a perspective I've never seen before - by learning how to write a good story and applying that to his own life.

What could have been a dry, goal oriented book is actually a hilarious, fun, brilliantly written autobiography. I loved how Miller recognized and wrote about the littlest moments and somehow jumped around time without it seeming out of place.

His take on advertising was brought back to stories too:

Advertising and marketing try to sell us a story that by buying their products, OUR story will match their perfect one.

If you can live a better story, there is no reason to buy into someone else's. Find a story you want to live and live it.