Risk

Previously, I and many others before me have written about the idea of life as a story. A couple weeks ago I watched a movie called Stranger Than Fiction that touched on this theme quite well. In the movie, the main character, Harold Crick, lives a life that is, quite literally, a story. One day, Harold begins to overhear the narration of his life, which is created by an author. He begins to understand that the events that the author writes direct the course of his own life and that her story is becoming real for him. I thought it was a great movie (due in part to the fact that the actor who played Buster in Arrested Development is in it). I feel that it holds a lot of meaning and that I would have to watch it several times over to be able to really grasp much of what it was trying to communicate. I had the same feeling when I read The Little Prince.

At the beginning of Stranger Than Fiction, Harold's life is dictated by his wristwatch. He is characterized by routine, precision, and solitude. He wakes up at exactly the same time every day, brushes his teeth with the same number of strokes, takes the same bus to work at the right moment, eats his meals alone, and goes about every day just like any other. Change is an alien concept to Harold. He doesn't build new relationships, take up new hobbies, or mix up his daily schedule. He simply lives, just as he has lived for ages.

I often feel like Harold Crick. In fact, I wrote a post just a couple months ago about how resistant I can be to change. In my thinking, if there is nothing necessarily wrong with how things are going, I might as well keep it like that. I'm not one to do things different or start a conversation with a stranger or go someplace new for the thrill of it. This is likely the result of a number of different factors--my own passivity, apathy, fear, or laziness. The problem, of course, is that this doesn't make for a very interesting story.

I wish I had my copy of Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years with me here in Oregon, because it is all about this idea of life as a story. But alas, it is stuffed in a box in my storage bin in my dorm back in Missouri. However, I do know that Miller defines a great story as one in which a character wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. Great stories don't involve guys who sit on their couches all the time eating Gardettos. They're about people who do something. Characters who make a decision. Who make a change. Who take a risk. In a great story, there needs to be a moment at which the character changes his course. Harold Crick eats cookies with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Frodo decides to take the ring to Mordor. Huck Finn rafts down the Mississippi with Jim. They don't settle down for a comfortable, predictable life. They push themselves into situations where they might lose something, into conflict, in hopes to gain what they want.This is what separates a round character from a flat one, an interesting story from a dull one.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that everyone has a story, and that they are stories worth hearing, as I have already written about here. It is a fact, however, that some stories are more interesting than others, and that the most interesting ones are about those who take a risk. Great stories don't normally just happen. They're made. Risk-taking and change doesn't come naturally. They require conscious decision. For that reason, I feel that I'm probably not the best person to be writing any of this. My friend Caitlyn would be much better. She's all about not having any regrets. In fact, she's the one who told me to write on this topic because it's something that she already thinks about. I, on the other hand, am not much of a risk-taker. Sitting around the house with a book or a laptop is so much safer and more comfortable than creating stories. But it's probably much more boring.

At the same time, I consider myself very fortunate to be friends with a number of people who are creating incredible stories with their lives. When I think about some of my closest friends and where they are right now or will be in the near future, their locations range from Maryland, Indiana, New Orleans, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and even Russia and Thailand. They're all over the map. They haven't settled down. They've thrown themselves out from their nests to places they don't know, all so that they can serve God with everything. And it makes for great stories, and I'm glad to somehow be privileged enough to run in the same circle as them.

What sort of story are you creating? Do you know what you want, and are you doing what it takes to get there? Or are you just existing, hoping that will somehow be enough to make a great story? My advice for today is this: take a risk. Do something. Start learning to play the clarinet. Ask that pretty girl you know to the Shakespeare festival you think she'd like. Go on a road trip with friends just to see what you can find. Take the homeless guy on the corner to lunch. Go on a mission trip. Make a story.

Before I wrap it up for tonight, I would like to share my favorite quotation from Stranger Than Fiction, when Harold says to Maggie Gyllenhaal's character, "This may sound like gibberish to you, but I think I'm in a tragedy." The pessimist in me relates. Go watch the movie.