I’ve loved movies for as long as I can remember. Genre doesn’t matter much. What matters is the story, and sometimes the story doesn’t even have to be that good as long as somebody tells it well.
The ones that stick with me fall into two camps. The first is the epic: Gladiator, Braveheart, The Matrix. One person against impossible odds, fighting through to finish the job even when it costs everything.
The second is the turn: Finding Forrester, A Christmas Carol, Groundhog Day, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Somebody gets shown who they really are and gets a chance to step into something better. Those are the ones I rewatch.
Years ago Donald Miller put words to something I’d felt for a long time. We understand our lives as stories, because they are. I’m the main character in mine. You’re the main character in yours.
You can hear it in how we talk. Ask someone how their day went and listen.
“How was work?”
“Fine. Argued with my boss. Took some calls. Met a new coworker. Came home.”
That’s a complete answer. You know what he did. You also have no reason to ask again tomorrow.
Now the same day, told another way.
“Good day, actually. Took forever to get through the spreadsheets because a buddy kept stopping by for help on his project. I’m swamped, but he’s been having a rough stretch and I was glad to help. And we had someone new start today. I think she’s going to fit right in.”
Same facts. But now you know what he cares about, what it cost him, and what he’s hoping for. You see the day through his eyes.
I spend a lot of my working life on the first kind of answer. Data is facts: rows, columns, values. Getting the facts right is the easy part of my job. The hard part is helping people see what the facts mean, how they fit together, and why anybody should care. That’s the second kind of answer. That’s story.
A life works the same way. You can live it as a list: did the job, paid the bills, came home. Every line true, and nothing you’d want to tell twice.
I want to live a story worth telling. Most days that just means paying attention to the second version of my own answer.
