How I Learned to Go All The Way for What Matters

In the past five years, a few unexpected things have happened:

I learned I had a terminal brain tumor, was served divorce papers from the love of my life, and to top it all off, spent a drunken night where I accidentally knocked up my best friend.

It’s been a busy five years filled with pain, heartache, and shame.

Photo Credit: Alyssa L. Miller, Creative Commons

But at the end of these three tragedies, I am surprised to find myself incredibly thankful for my new life.

When I was young, I felt God telling me that I would take part in an amazing story.

And I would share that story with those around me in order to help them change their lives. It has been that pull, that promise, keeping me going through the past twenty years.

I just never imagined the source of that story would come through three miserable events where I was obviously the loser.

I suppose my story belongs in the folder called “in my weakness, He will be made strong”.

No matter how messed up your story seems, it is one worth living and telling.

God has indeed shown his strength in the middle of my unfortunate weakness.

So much so, that I feel this series of events has become my unique story to share with the world.

Only now do I fully understand why T.S. Eliot wrote, “The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink”.

That cold prickly rawness is exactly how I feel as I take my first step from simply existing, to now, recalling and recording the previous five years of my existence.

I am ridiculously scared to take a step forward, but as Steven Pressfield repeatedly said in his book, The War of Art, the only thing I can do now is to push through this resistance.

Now is the moment I begin to put my story on paper.

I’m going to write the story I’ve known I’m supposed to write for years, called, Thank You Kung-Fu.

I know you can hear me.

I know you’ve felt these feelings before. And if I can face my fears of writing my story, I know you can overcome that single idea that keeps you up, night after night.

As I dive into my story, I encourage you to take one more small step forward towards your future project. Yeah, that single idea that makes you feel so vulnerable you want to burn it in the backyard.

The only help I can offer you is to utter this phrase by Ernest Hemingway as often as I have:

“Go all the way with it. Do not back off. For once, go all the goddamn way with what matters.”

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From the Storyline team: David Wenzel is a good friend to all of us here at Storyline and we’ve been so inspired watching him fight his battle with Cancer and learn to live a great story. If you’re interested in knowing more about him, or in supporting him in his journey, you can Storyline Blog