A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

by Donald Miller.

One of my (many) resolutions is to read one book per month this year. I am not a reader, I don't particularly enjoy it, but I recognize its importance so I am making an effort.

I first heard of this book on one of my favorite blogs (Enjoying the Small Things by Kelle Hampton). I am so glad I decided to start with this book, the chapters are very short, from a page and a half to three pages. James Patterson does the same thing and I think it's a trick that entices you to keep reading "just one more chapter." The book was an easy read, and I chuckled quite a few times.

The whole premise is that we should all view our lives as a screenplay and we should write the characters we wish to become, and write the stories that are worth living. So many of us get caught up in the daily grind and more often than not, we are just going through the motions without anything interesting or exciting happening to us. If you were to ask yourself if an audience would be bored with your story, what would the answer be? My audience would be asleep in five minutes, or out at the ticket office asking for a refund!

Some of my character flaws that I need to challenge this year?
1) I am not adventurous at.all. Period. I am a creature of habit and the unknown makes me super uncomfortable.
2) I am shy, which I just recently discovered during my RAK challenge and in Target the other day when a simple conversation with another mom in the baby aisle gave me sweaty palms.
3) I have been told by many, many people that their first impression of me is that I was intimidating. I think that stems from me being shy, coupled with the fact that I don't smile a lot. Damn braces in my teen years made me paranoid to smile and it became a habit.
4) In high school, I was voted two things my senior year: Best Sense of Humor and Most Inspiring. Over the years since high school, I feel like I have lost touch with those two qualities. I need to find a way for those attributes to rise to the top.
5) I need to lose weight. I am well on my way (down 36 lbs. so far, woot!), and I know myself. Once I am back to my PR (pre-Ryan) weight, I know that my confidence will increase which will take care of smiling more and being less shy.

I am going to work on making a list of things that I want to do this year in order to develop my character and write a different story for myself. Exciting thing just don't happen, you have to make them happen.