Confession: I Like Winning More Than I Like People

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I have a confession to make. I care more about winning than I do about people. It’s not true all the time, but it’s true a lot of the time. At some point in my youth I began believing that if I didn’t win, nobody would like me. This served me well, in some regards. I had a successful company and a lovely home and so on and so on. And yet something happened to me years ago that planted a seed of change in my heart. And I’ll be forever grateful.

Even though I was successful, I was stressed and often lonely.

Winning takes a lot of work and worry.

And it often leads to more than a few sleepless nights. On one of those sleepless nights, I got a call from a friend down in Texas who let me know that my old youth pastor had passed away. The man was like a father to me. I had dedicated Blue Like Jazz to him. I was heartbroken.

I flew to Texas and was asked to deliver the eulogy at his funeral. And as I sat in my hotel room, preparing my talk, I reflected on his life. He was an incredibly talented man. He spoke, wrote, and even played music. And yet he passed away relatively unknown. Instead of seeking fame through his many talents, he served a local church, taught Sunday school, took in people who needed a room for free, and hung out with alcoholics and drug addicts.

He was amazing at being present.

He knew how to be with you. He never looked over your shoulder for a better opportunity. And that kind of life cost him. He died with little money, few possessions, and little notoriety. I found the situation sad. I wanted the world to know who he was.

What shocked me, though, was that I got a call saying the funeral had been moved from the small church he pastored to a baseball field on the edge of town. And when I pulled up to the ballpark, cars were lining the road for nearly a mile. The local news station had camera trucks parked out side. The stands were full and so people were sitting on the hill above the stands.

What my friend taught me that day is that success in the eyes of the world means little. He’d built a rich empire of love by giving his life to one person at a time—by listening to them, by looking them in the eye.

I was incredibly convicted.

Even though I was very successful, I doubted my funeral would attract a tenth of the attendees.

Since then, I began to study what really makes a life meaningful. And I wasn’t surprised to find that many of the things I’d been pursuing would never provide meaning at all.

I want to share a chapter with you from my new book Scary Close, out in a few days. The chapter is called The Stuff of a Meaningful Life and it’s all about the things we need to do to experience a deep sense of satisfaction and to keep us from experiencing regret in life.

I hope the chapter is helpful as you reflect on your own life. I’m grateful for my friend, for all he taught me. Even in his passing, he continues to change my life. I’m a better person for his example.

Grateful,

Donald Miller

P.S. If you pre-order Scary Close, make sure to enter your receipt number at scaryclose.com to get a free audiobook of Blue Like Jazz. The offer is only available until midnight on February 3rd. Don’t forget to download the sample chapter, and feel free to share it with friends.

Confession: I Like Winning More Than I Like People is a post from: Storyline Blog