The Storyteller
I have been a storyteller my whole life. I may not have been a good one, but I have always love to tell a story. Problem is, my stories tend to be heavy on details and longer than the average attention span. I think that is because I see things with rich detail and when I talk about something, I like to include the detail. My dad had the same problem. Once, I heard it said of my father, that if someone asked him the time of day, he would tell them how to build a watch.
I have started this post three time and abandoned it twice because I started drifting off in some direction that I keep feeling needs more and more explanation. I hoping that the third time is the charm. I began this 30 day “story” challenge because I started peeling back the layers of my highly chaotic life and I started asking myself that one basic question, “what do I want to do for a living?” I have given myself permission to ask that question. I think I have plenty of skills and experience to maintain a profitable career in software development, but I left that five years ago because it was killing me.
When I worked as a programmer, I knew in my heart of hearts that what I was doing with my life was absolutely the wrong thing. I was certain the God had created me to do something specific and sitting in a cubical cranking out lines of C Sharp code wasn’t it… and it wasn’t even remotely close. However, when I quit my amazing job, that paid me way too much money, I wanted to do something that made me come alive– something creative. For some reason the thing that was screaming the loudest within me was filmmaking. I didn’t know much about filmmaking, I mean, I knew a lot about filmmaking; I had read a bunch of books, watched a lot of movies, even watched many of them a second time with the director’s commentary. I had learned a lot about filmmaking, but I didn’t know squat.
I know that sounds contradictory, but that is the best way I can describe it. For the last three years, I have loosely chased a dream of being a filmmaker only to reach a point where I wonder if I should continue. I know I need to be doing something creative with my life. I was born with many creative abilities, but I am really unsatisfied with my direction in life. For some reason, I have reached a place where I don’t really have a clear vision of where I want to go.
A few months ago, I started looking deep within myself and asking some crucial questions. I really want to know what is written in my DNA, what it is that am I uniquely created for. Having turned 40 in May, I thought it was a good a time as any to figure out what I want to do with my life. I didn’t feel as though my current direction was drawing enough on my creativity and I needed more answers. When I began to examine my life, when I ran back the years and looked at a younger version of myself, I started asking what was the common theme in my life that seemed to play out in my memories. What were those things that I remembered, what made me feel alive.
I wandered around for a while until I started seeing something play out repeatedly in my memory, something that come back to me time and time again. Having a vivid imagination and a keen sense of observation, I began early in life to be a storyteller. As it turns out, stories have been a central theme in my life. I have come back to it over and over again the past few months, but I constantly hear the same answer when I ask myself what I want to do for the rest of my life… not doubt about it, I want to tell stories.
The problem is, I have no idea what that means. So, I am starting a 30 day journey to look at “story”, what it is, and how it plays a role in my life. I know I want to be a story teller, but I don’t know if that will be as a filmmaker, a writer, a painter, a lawyer or a professional liar. I have absolutely no idea. I do know that stories flow out of me and they energize me. So, here I go. I’ve got 29 more days to go and I hope I discover something interesting along the way.
