of stories and being myself

Here's a short post about a lecture that I went to that Donald Miller gave (author of Blue Like Jazz). He talked about story and real meaning comes from it and how we need to be able to tell a better story, or maybe be better story-tellers, even dare to live better stories so that others and ourselves will be able to find meaning in truth and have our moral compasses affected.

Apparently he was convincing because I want to tell better stories and I want to live a better story. I want to be the better character who has the better thing that he wants that he can only get by overcoming painful conflict in order to get. But at what cost do I want this?

Today we did "outreach" on the campus. We set up tents and have boards that people can put stickers on and write notes and messages. We hope for conversations, we hope for conversions, we hope for meaning. But secretly I hope for success and from that scale or definition disappointment is all I'll find. No, I do want meaningful conversation, but secretly I'm pessimistic about the whole thing mostly because I'm so arrogant and in the end I figure I'll just settle for success but we know where that gets me.

I struggle so much with understanding the difference between me changing my perspective about things and my going through things which change my perspective. I'm hopeful, almost excited that this week can, if I let it, be a thing through which my perspective changes.

Also, in full nerd fashion I've reserved all the books Donald Miller mentioned during his lecture in my library queue.