DAY 026 – DESIGNING DANGEROUSLY

Establish Your Narrative

I’ve heard a couple opinions lately that we should approach our lives like a story. For instance, we should think of ourselves as a character looking at a bevy of choices and think, “what would make the most interesting story?” I think there are some interesting things implicit in this, and I’m probably giving it short shrift, but I can’t help but think that if we truly followed this, most of us would stop paying our bills and burn our bras. So to speak.

We would introduce conflict into our lives, and conflict evidences itself as pain. Pain makes a good story. Sunday night I was out with theatre faculty and students. Students were talking about their work-a-day jobs and prospects. I happily shared with them one of the most painful work experiences of my life, working swing shift at an inbound Netflix call center for four months with an MFA and an infant at home. It was an incredibly rough time, but it’s also become a touchstone for who I am and where I’ve been.