My fantastic friend Jana sent me two books to aid my resting.  The first one I completed (partly because the other is a trilogy packaged into one large book) is A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.  It's a book you want to start reading over again once you finish, because the ambiguous beginning *must* make more sense after you've followed his thought to its completion and seen it fulfilled in the author's life.

It's hard to explain in a few sentences what he takes an entire book to argue.  But the gist of it is that we have the power to write the stories of our lives the way writers create memorable movies or books.  By studying what makes a good story great, and turns a great story into an epic adventure, we can deliberately steer our lives away from the fear-based safe choices that keep us from filling our lives with meaning.  The book is his personal journey from a quiet life of daydreams to one of greater risk, involvement, activism, and contribution.  For me, it was a combination memoir, self-help book, and writing manual -- definitely thought provoking.

His blog, which I reviewed only briefly, covers a range of topics, but I found this entry illustrative of what he hopes to inspire in the book: The What If Challenge.  I've heard this advice, to ask yourself "What if?" many times before (or the similar "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?"), but found the context of doing this as a group challenge a new spin, as it takes his first post about the concept (linked in the post about the challenge) and creates a way for people to be accountable.

Sometime today I hope to ponder my What ifs.  The first question is most likely, what if I could get a good night's sleep without Tylenol with Codeine?



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