A Million Miles In A Thousand Years

I finished Donald Miller’s new book, A Million Miles in A Thousand Years shortly after receiving it in the mail this week and what hooked me into reading it so quickly was probably the introduction:

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers.  You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen.  The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back.  Nobody cries at the end of the movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.

But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful.  The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.

Also I laughed out loud at his roommate’s response to the new project he was working on:

You’re writing another book about yourself?

Yes he did.  I kind of wondered the same thing when I saw it at first, but he captured me with his words again.

You can find more words that I loved from this book over at the place where I sometimes save things I can’t hold in my head.