Donald Miller's Blog

Why I Would Rather Be Crazy Than Boring

Recently I was on a plane, reading a book, and I started crying.

I’m not much of a crier most of the time. I have my moments, of course, like anyone; usually in private. But I’m typically not the girl who cries in movie theaters or over hallmark commercials or even (in public) over well-written books.

So of course it came as a huge surprise on the plane when the tears began to come and I realized, no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t going to be able to will them away.

Oh no, not this now, I thought to myself.

But even as the thought entered my brain, I felt the first hot drop of salty water make a break for it and come streaming down my face. I put my head down, blinked a few times, hoping that would be it and I could move on — but no such luck.

In fact, the harder I tried to blink them back, the more persistently they pushed their way out of my eyelids and spilled down my cheeks.

You can imagine the awkward throat-clearing that followed from the man to my right, in 38C.

I hung my head in shame. He must think I’m crazy, I thought to myself. I pictured myself turning toward him, holding up the cover of the book and saying, between stilted breaths, and with my squeaky, crying voice:

“I’m sorry sir, it’s just a really good book!”

But I didn’t say anything. Instead, I just leaned my head back against the seat and let the tears flow. And you know what I decided while I was crying? I decided it’s okay. It’s okay if he thinks I’m crazy; and it’s okay if you think I’m crazy.

I’d rather be crazy.

I’d rather be crazy and vulnerable than to be the kind of person who can’t cry when the situation calls for it, or who won’t let herself feel anything at all.

I’ve been that girl. And I don’t miss her.

I’ve spent so much time waiting, wasted so many years wishing for life to happen to me, instead of taking responsibility to make it happen myself.

I don’t want to be that girl anymore—that bored girl, that sad girl.

I’d rather be this girl, the girl who is committed to forgive, and love, and move, and act, and let go, push forward and believe even when it doesn’t make sense; even if it means being disappointed, even if it means being hurt, again and again.

I’d rather swing for the fences.

I’d rather be crazy.

I’d rather give to much than too little.

Too much love, too much money, too much of my time.

I’d rather be crazy.

I’ve spent most of my life trying to make sure people didn’t think I was crazy. But recently everything is changing. Recently I think to myself, while crying over a book on an airplane, who cares what the guy in 38C thinks anyway?

After all, crazy might not be so bad after all.

The Key To Happiness? Love Something To The Point Of Ridicule

A while ago I stumbled upon an amazing video of a guy in New York seeing a limited edition train for the first time.

May sound irrelevant to you and me, but this guy is absolutely obsessed with trains and it makes for one of funniest videos I’d seen in a long time.

Enjoy this wonderful 4.5 minutes.

After sharing the video on Facebook, a friend pointed out one of the youtube comments that read:

“Wow. I wish I cared this much about anything.”

We can laugh at this guy for getting fired up about something most of us know nothing about. But the truth is, very few people can honestly say they care this much about anything.

And then it dawned on me: Loving something like this guy loves trains is the secret to happiness. It’s also the secret to humanness.

I believe we were created to build, strategize, love, scheme, obsess, and innovate. For this guy, limited edition trains probably keep him awake at night. In a world where so many can’t even name one positive thing they are passionate about, there is something beautifully human in this guy losing his mind over a train.

Excited train guy from New York gives us a small glimpse into the great capacity for joy and excitement we as humans have the ability to experience.

Furthermore, loving something to the point of ridicule is extremely important. Especially if it’s something of value or purpose. I knew I was on to something when a few years back people started poking fun about my work with These Numbers Have Faces.

A good friend once told me he was in the process of starting a similar organization called “These Braces Have Faces,” whose mission is to provide counseling for kids who had undergone embarrassing dental work. We got a good laugh out of that.

People poking fun at your passions is a very good sign. It means they care enough to notice what you’re doing and are most likely a little bit envious.

So what is it for you? What’s the thing you’d film a video of yourself doing, knowing full well that people might make fun of you?

Don’t know? I encourage you to figure it out. Take a tip from the excited train guy in New York.

Why Your Past Shouldn’t Control Your Future

A few weeks ago Donald Miller talked about the most important question you can ask yourself: What if?

It is an encouraging and forward-thinking question. It got me thinking what if I asked that question more often and asked this one less:

What could have been?

It’s the question that turns your head back to look at your past. To re-think it, to wonder what would have been different had you… What could have been better had you… Where you would be living now if you had just… Who you would be with if you hadn’t…

The “What Could Have Been” is a pit.

And it can get deep fast if you’re not careful.

I spent a lot of the last year asking myself what could have been. I felt regret and sadness over a broken relationship and re-ran scenarios in my head, conversations. You know the drill.

What-could-have-been can make a person crazy.

So why do we ask the question so much?

I think because it’s easier to look behind than it is to look ahead. The past is comfortable. You know what happens there because it, well, already happened. It’s illuminated. The past is the easiest place for your mind to find but the hardest to leave. You can get trapped there.

The future on the other hand has no lit path. It looks dark ahead of you. You don’t know what’s there and stepping into it can feel impossible.

Even if you think you know what the future holds and you’re looking at your to-do list and reading this and telling yourself, “I’m not scared. I know exactly what I’m doing.” You don’t. You can’t. His ways are higher than ours; his thoughts above ours (Isaiah 55:9).

It’s good to reflect on the past.

But if the reflection turns to regret, guilt or anxiety, maybe it has gone too far. Maybe you’re getting too comfy in the past and need to turn your head around and look forward.

We just came out of season in which we commemorated Christ’s birth. And what was Christ’s birth a symbol of?

Hope for mankind.

There is no hope in your past so stop trying to find it there. (tweet this).

Hope is ahead of you. Light is at the end of the tunnel, right?

The Right Way to Praise Your Kids

Not long ago a study was released explaining kids are negatively affected when we tell them they’re good at something. It sounds crazy, I know, but the article said if we say to our kids they’re good musicians or good athletes, they feel an enormous amount of pressure to live up to the expectations we’ve unknowingly set. The study found kids are much better off if we say great job scoring that goal or you sounded really good in practice today.

The difference, the study suggested, is we’re praising what a kid did rather than praising his or her identity based on select criteria. In other words, when we say you’re a good musician what the kid hears is you only matter if you’re a good musician and you should fear losing that status but when we say you sounded great in practice today what the kid hears is you sounded great in practice today, nothing more and nothing less. Their identity has nothing to do with whether they’re a good musician or not.

Most parents mean well, of course, but the article had a great point. When our identity gets tied up in success, we begin to fear failure or the loss of that status, and fearing failure is one of the reasons we begin to hide our real selves and project a false identity.

I could trace a similar dynamic through my own career.

My first book was reviewed decently but nobody told me I was a great writer so I didn’t feel much pressure writing a second book. After my second book came out, people were much more kind and I started believing, without realizing what was happening, that I had to measure up to their expectations. I didn’t want to let them down with my next effort. And so the time it took for me to write a book was longer and longer with each new project. My first book took a year to write, the second took a year and a half and now it takes four years or more for me to finish a book. Why? Because the pressure to measure up has compounded.

Where there’s much to lose, there’s much to fear.

And I was paralyzed by the fear.

Once people start telling us we’re good at something we can feel it and we wrongly believe we have to produce something better or we’ll fade away. And this idea affects more than just our careers. Anybody who has built their identity on being beautiful is probably terrified to grow old or gain weight. Anybody who has built their identity on being rich might be afraid of losing money or status.

Anybody who controls people with power might be afraid of being seen as weak. (Tweet This)

Once we believe we matter based on certain conditions, we become a slave to those conditions.

How to Fight Feelings of Futility

A few times each year, it happens. I go into a funk. What I’m talking about is that first, initial feeling of depression. I’ve been depressed before, maybe ten years ago and then again about twenty years ago. It’s a terrible feeling, of course. Essentially, the feeling is that life is meaningless and there’s no reason to contribute anything.

I’ve learned from experience the funk, for me, only lasts a few days but it’s ugly when it happens. I’m not talking about depression, now, I’m talking about those dark days that occasionally come for a visit.

Of course, my normal brain would never get tripped by the thought that life is meaningless. I know it isn’t. My faith attributes great meaning to every moment, and so it’s strange that the same truth can sometimes miss me that most often seems obvious. Of course the work we do matters. And all that we say and do matter, too. If one thing matters, everything matters. The problem is, though, my brain isn’t working right.

Most of the depression we experience isn’t rational. It’s just that our brains are too tired to think accurately about life. (Tweet This)

The brain is complicated, and when it’s tired or not functioning at its best, we begin to believe things, feel things, subscribe to ideas that make no sense. But they can take you down all the same.

But I’ve come a long way. The existential funk doesn’t threaten me as much as it used to. For starters, they are few and far between, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to predict them.

Here’s what I mean: I go into this funk, almost mechanically, after a long trip in which I’ve spoken more than once and lost at least one night of sleep. If this happens, I can count on being in a funk for at least three days after returning home.

So here’s what I do during the funk:

1. I get some rest. I literally sleep as much as possible. The real problem isn’t that nothing in life matters, the real problem is my brain, which is a muscle, is fatigued and not functioning very well.

2. I don’t work. I give myself at least one, if not two days in which I don’t work. That’s a tough one for me because I get great joy out of my work. But when the brain needs rest, the brain needs rest.

3. I tell myself the things I’m thinking about the nature of life simply aren’t true, no matter how true they feel. Certainly there are existential dilemmas in life, but the issue isn’t life itself, the issue is control. I want to know everything and yet God has not given me all the information. I just have to trust Him, and I have to trust that the work I do somehow matters to Him in the way it mattered to God that Adam named the animals. Futility in life, then, is a lie. I may not know why it’s a lie, but I know it is.

4. I start working again. About three days in, I can come back to life a little bit. It’s hard at first, but about two or three hours into the work, those old feelings of life being futile fade away and I get lost, once again, in the puzzle that is my work, my marriage and my community.

Of course, not everybody’s brain comes back to life so easily.

Some people need more than just sleep. My aching sympathies go out to you if you’re reading this and these solutions seem too simple. I’m so sorry. I know there’s help in other areas and I hope and pray you’re seeking that help. Lies are powerful and deceptive.

For the rest of us, sometimes the best thing to do is hunker down and weather the storm until it passes. I hope this gives you something to think about as the feelings of futility mount up. May they wash over you and somehow feed the crops, producing humility, faith, trust and an iron discipline to press on when the sun is shining.

The Simple Step to Become a Remarkably Likeable Person

I recently met a local Portland politician for lunch whom I’ve respected for a long time. I went into the meeting planning on asking him about his political career and to get some tips on a few communication questions I had. Basically, I was planning on talking about him for an hour.

Then something incredible happened.

We sat down, he opened up his laptop, and proceeded to take notes while asking me engaging question after engaging question about my work, my family, my interests, and more. When it was all said and done, he hit me over the head with one more: “How can I help you?”

He’s a politician, but his interest in me wasn’t disingenuous. He wasn’t trying to schmooze me. I have no money to give him, no political connections of any value. But for 45 minutes he made me feel important.

The result? I will vote for him in every possible scenario I can. I will tell my friends to vote for him. I will attend his events. I will support his initiatives. I will put up a yard sign. I will put up two yard signs.

• • •

Seth Godin calls this the Connection Economy

“Friends bring us more friends. A reputation brings us a chance to build a better reputation. Access to information encourages us to seek ever more information. The connections in our life multiply and increase in value.”

Thriving in the connection economy is based on one important principle:

Getting people to like you.

People who like you will support your ideas, buy your product, hire your services, introduce you to their friends, and go out of their way to make your life better.

If you’re an extrovert, getting people to like you is simple:

Stop talking so much.

No seriously. Stop it.

I know a lot of people who, out of nervousness or excitement think the best way to engage people is to talk them into utter submission. As if their endless words, jokes and anecdotes infused with Red Bull and hooked up to a V8 engine will fast-track them into the Connection Economy.

What so many don’t realize is that the secret to building relationships isn’t in the words you say, but in the questions you ask.

If you’re an introvert, the same truth applies. Don’t change who you are, just be more strategic in how you foster dialogue.

• • •

Asking the right questions is an art form and it has a name: Social Jiu-Jitsu

Popularized in an article by Jeff Haden, he breaks down this scenario:

You meet someone. You talk for 15 minutes. You walk away thinking, “Wow, we just had a great conversation. She is awesome.”

Then, when you think about it later, you realize you didn’t learn a thing about the other person.

Remarkably likeable people are masters at Social Jiu-Jitsu, the ancient art of getting you to talk about yourself without you ever knowing it happened.

Social Jiu-Jitsu masters use their interest, their politeness, and their social graces to cast an immediate spell on you.

And you like them for it.

Social Jiu-Jitsu is easy. Just ask the right questions.

As soon as you learn a little about someone, ask how they did it. Or why they did it. Or what they liked about it, or what they learned from it, or what you should do if you’re in a similar situation.

 

Before our lunch order had even arrived, my politician friend Social Jui-Jitsu’d me into submission. And I love him for it.

• • •

Here’s a tip: From here on out, in every meeting or meaningful conversation you have, work to try and get the other person to stop and say, “Hmm, that’s a really good question.” That’s the goal. If you’ve gotten them to say that, you’ve won.

Becoming a remarkably likable person in the Connection Economy is a crucial step to building the network you need to make a real impact in the world.

“Be interesting, be enthusiastic, and don’t talk too much.” – Norman Vincent Peale

How to Free Yourself From Unhealthy Relationships

My friend Pete recently let me in on a paradigm shift I found helpful. He was talking about a friend of his who, for some reason, was taking up a bit too much of his mental space. He was beginning to feel responsible for a friend’s bad decisions. Another friend of Pete’s said that Pete needed to be responsible TO his friend, not FOR his friend.

Pete explained this meant he was responsible to be kind to his friend, understanding, helpful, professional if that’s what the relationships required and so on. But his friend’s decisions and even his emotions were that of his friend not of Pete’s.

A lot of this goes back to Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s terrific book Boundaries, but I found the little phrase be responsible TO and not FOR helpful.

So, if you’re feeling guilty about somebody else’s mistakes, their depression, or their being irritated, it might be good to ask yourself if you’ve done anything wrong that has caused that, and if not, the problem really is their problem. You can be responsible to them — to be kind and comforting — but when you become responsible for them, you are going to grow tired of the relationship, because you are going to feel guilty about issues that are not yours, but theirs.

*this is a re-post from the archives

If You Want to Write a Book, Start With Your Story

If you want to write a book about physics, you’ll have to know a lot about physics. And the same goes for psychology and botany. But to write a humane book, be it fiction or memoir, all you really need to know is your own story.

We read books for different reasons.

Sometimes it’s to learn a craft or for a perspective on current events, but the books most people read aren’t approached with a specific ambition at all. What we want most is to not feel alone — to allow somebody to rummage inside our minds and souls and point out all the ways we are alike.

And to write this sort of book, you only need to know your own story.

Like a painter, a writer writes with colors and textures. Sure there’s form, and it helps to know how a story works, but the real genius lies in the ability to remain human and to connect with other humans.

Colors and textures are your human experiences.

Here are a few to keep in mind as you write:

Fear. What makes you afraid? Fear is the most dominant human emotion, and it’s the seed of so many other emotions: jealousy, rage, insecurity and detachment. A good writer knows this and won’t mistake one for the other. And so in your work, mine what it is you’re afraid of. Are you afraid of losing control? Are you afraid of death? Are you afraid to succeed? The more you can paint with that color, the more people will recognize themselves in your work and the less they’ll feel alone.
Vulnerability. Even if you’re writing fiction, you should feel like you’re telling secrets. And they should be deep, dark secrets you’d only tell your most trusted friend. Remember, when we write we are becoming the temporal companion of the reader, and if we want them to trust us, we have to give up our secrets.
Love. I know it sounds mushy, but it helps to actually love your reader. While a non-fiction diatribe may work to insist a theological point, a person who doesn’t love his or her reader will never write a classic. It’s not been done. Never write from a defensive posture. If you do, you’ll never be able to be vulnerable or honestly talk about your fears, and your reader will smell it out and move on. If it helps, imagine writing a story for your closest friend or significant other.

And don’t apologize.

Your story may frustrate some people, but if they don’t accept you as you are, they really wouldn’t have been your friend in the first place. If you’re writing a memoir, you don’t have to apologize for drinking too much or bingeing on ice cream. Just report the events like a loving journalist. Nobody gets to steal your humanity. Speak from the heart.

When it’s all said and done, any human being can write a very human book. But of course, the trick is to become human again. Critics, scolders and conditional lovers can have you living in fear. Forgive them. We’ve all done it to each other.

And rather than return evil for evil, let’s just walk gently with each other in our writing and in our lives.

Put Your Pain into Perspective

We’ve all experienced moments of feeling like our pain is being “put into perspective.”

Whether it comes from witnessing horrible tragedies on the news or walking with our friends through unimaginable circumstances, you’ve probably, like me, sighed in the heaviness of it all and said something along the lines of, “man, the stuff I go through is so petty in comparison to this.”

The sentiment is common.

For years, I’ve heard myself and other Christians make similar comments over and over again when discussing news stories, social injustices and the burdens of the poor and hurting.

This way of processing tragedy isn’t exactly wrong. There’s no denying God uses external tragedies to give us inner perspective. But pain is pain. And I have a hard time believing God ever intended for us to go so far as to let others’ pain shame us into believing our pain is a “petty” problem unworthy of God’s attention.

This idea came up last week when I got a call from my friend Jamie. I was telling him about the teen mom I mentor, Emilia, who had just opened up about years of sexual and physical abuse.

I was telling Jamie how petty the relational hardships I’d endured seemed in light of Emilia’s, how she’d really shifted my perspective, how I’d wasted so much time mourning heartache that wasn’t even close to what Emilia’s heartache must be like.

But before I could continue, he cut me off.

“Yeah, but that stuff matters too, Cadence.”

I paused. “Yeah, I know…”

Truthfully, I was kind of annoyed. Yeah, yeah I get it, my stuff matters but it doesn’t really matter. Not as much as Emilia’s stuff. I shouldn’t be mourning my stuff when there’s more important stuff to be mourning in the world.

Our conversation continued and I didn’t think much else about it.

But my friend’s words came back to haunt me a few days later. I got an email from an ex that was hard to swallow and as I started to tell myself you shouldn’t be upset about this, I immediately remembered my friends words: That stuff matters too.

All of a sudden those four words I’d found slightly annoying and uncomfortable a few days earlier felt like a breath of fresh air.

They actually felt true.

And even healing.

I slowly began realizing how years of belittling my pain in the face of others’ pain had only been filling me up with shame. You shouldn’t care so much about this. Just think of what so-and-so’s been through!

What my friend Jamie taught me in that moment, without realizing it, came directly from working with thousands of hurting people over the years who’d been held back from healing because they were carrying so much shame about their pain.

Your stuff matters too.

We need to stop shaming ourselves about our pain and instead acknowledge that we are all fragile humans who are trying to figure this life thing out. We need to remind one another our pain matters, even when it feels petty.

And especially when we’re tempted to compare and conceal it.

Let’s practice more compassion without comparison. Let’s gain more eternal perspective while giving ourselves permission to mourn our worldly losses.

Your pain is not a problem.

What Self Pity is Costing You

I have a confession. I’m given to self pity. I hate it and I don’t want it in my life anymore. It’s costing me.

In the past month or so I’ve been studying Richard Nixon. We just passed the 40th anniversary of his impeachment and resignation, so interviews and articles have been floating around the internet.

Nixon lived in a bit of an ethical fog.

But in my opinion his ethics problems weren’t his primary flaw. His primary flaw was he felt sorry for himself.

Whether it was constantly comparing himself to the Kennedys or wishing the press would cut him a break, Nixon’s default mode was to shirk responsibility for his actions by blaming his problems on other people.

Remarkably, self pity is often the default mode of the bully. Why? Because it’s just another way of playing the bully. Every victim needs an oppressor, and people don’t like oppressors so the bully often flops to play the victim as a way of making their enemies look bad. It’s just more manipulation.

To be sure, there are real victims in the world.

Henry Cloud says a victim is somebody who is truly hopeless. But Nixon was never hopeless.

In leadership, playing the victim backfires. When Nixon lost his bid for governor of California he gave a press conference in which he scolded the media for their constant criticism, saying this would be his last press conference and that they wouldn’t have “Nixon to kick around anymore.” The press conference made him a laughing stock and it was the primary obstacle he had to overcome as he continued his political career. Even today it’s considered his second biggest mistake, after Watergate, of course.

Pat Buchanan says self pity is the nail in the coffin of any political career, but I suggest it’s much more than a political career that gets hurt by self pity. I think as wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, teachers, pastors and just about any other leadership role we play, self pity is intuitively seen by others as a weakness and it makes people not want to follow us.

If we need to ask for help, that’s great.

We can confide in friends, see a counselor or even publicly ask for help, but playing the victim isn’t that. Playing the victim is accusing other people of oppressing us in a dramaticized fashion. Self pity is emotional exaggeration as a way of blaming our problems on others.

Preaching to myself, I know. But hopefully I’ll be taking some folks with me. No more self pity. Let’s move up and on.

The world needs us to lead, not to lick our wounds.