Hero on a Mission

 Buy this book.  (Or the audiobook read by the author, if you enjoy those like I do!)

I can't possibly do this justice, but I need to go ahead and write it anyway.  Donald Miller is currently right up there in the running with John Eldredge for my favorite author.  Both of them have written multiple books that have spoken to my heart at the perfect time (thanks, God) and changed my life and offered new perspective.  I'm probably more theologically aligned with Eldredge, but I really love Donald Miller's work and find his life inspiring, and this new book is my favorite of his thus far!

It's worth the money for the first chapter alone...

He starts by saying that every story has a Victim, a Villain, a Hero, and a Guide.

• The VICTIM gets stuck wallowing in their own pain.  They feel sorry for themselves, and you mostly feel sorry for them.  They are there to make the hero look good and make the villain look bad, but their role is small and they fail to transform or find meaning in their pain.
• The VILLAIN tries to make others small.  They are bitter about their painful experiences, and they try to make themselves feel more powerful by belittling, controlling, or hurting others.
• The HERO accepts hard realities, finds meaning and purpose in their suffering, desires something specific for their life, and has the courage to transform and create something meaningful!
• The GUIDE uses their wisdom from past experiences to help others rise up, speaking life and encouragement over their dreams and goals, and offering practical guidance and meaningful advice as they move through their story! 

Metaphors work so well for me, and my heart got this immediately.  He calls this book an antidote to victim mentality. ❤

As complex human beings, we all have it inside us to play all four of those roles.  T-Swift is a good example of how we can be all four, or you can look back at your life and see that clearly, just like I can.  This book is saying that we need to pay attention to it when "Victim Energy" or "Villain Energy" surfaces... knowing that it will pull us (and the people around us) down rather than adding meaning and value to our lives!!  

*We all face hard things over the course of life (to varying degrees, but we all have pain), and the difference is purely in how we react after our painful circumstances.

Don says we each have great potential to live a story that is meaningful to us, and we shouldn't sit around waiting for God or fate to direct our path.  God has given us creative agency and specific gifts and talents, and He wants us to have the courage to invest them and build something, like in the parable of the talents.  We should take action and pursue things that sound interesting and meaningful to us - really thinking it over and choosing something that will bring us joy, honor God, and be beneficial to others!  

You might have a unique vision to build something new, or you can join a story that matters to you.  I loved it when he said that a lot of people are not visionary personalities with a specific, grand dream... but you can find just as much meaning and purpose and community in joining and supporting someone else's vision and meaningful story, so long as it's something and/or someone that really matters to you!  I've found that to be true in the past, and it's clarifying as I start to seek more meaning now.

He also said that the story you live and create in your relationships is more beautiful and important than any story focused on money and career, so don't undervalue it -- loved that too.  He encourages the reader to focus on finding narrative traction (building a life story that is going somewhere) and doing things you find interesting/meaningful rather than focusing on self-actualization and fulfilling your potential - again, I loved that, and it takes the pressure off!  It can go a million different ways, but find something that interests you and be engaged in the story you're telling with your work or your relationships or your health!

He also talked about how victim energy is a perfectly good and appropriate coping tool following any tragedy or rejection or painful situation - we don't need to feign happiness all the time or pretend that loss is not deeply hard on our hearts... but we should be careful not to let ourselves get stuck there, struggling to find meaning and hope.  Because the Victim does not transform or find a redemptive perspective where they can see the value in what they went through; the Hero does.  The Villain and the Hero both want to feel more powerful, but one does it by hating themselves and making others smaller, and one does it by transforming themselves and living a meaningful story.

And that's just the summary of chapter one.  lol

He goes on to offer some great insight from years of experience about how to build a meaningful story, how to set priorities and live that out day by day.  He emphasizes that when any major story or goal we've been moving toward comes to an end, we need to be sure to find another story and a new goal.  Dream a new dream.  Until we die, we should always have at least one (and up to three) meaningful goals that we are actively pursuing, big or small, alone or joining with others!!  We get one life here, and we get to choose whether we play the victim, the villain, the hero, or the guide.  Only two of those roles will add meaning and value to our lives and others.  I LOVE THAT! ❤

(*If this interests you, for the next five days, you could learn more about it by watching the free livestream HERE.)

...I've been a fan of Donald's writing since the days of Blue Like Jazz, a book I read with Angie, Bobbi, and Hannah in a 2008 book club! =)

Since that time, he authored A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Storyline, Scary Close, and now Hero on a Mission.  His life has transformed in so many ways over the past decade, and it's been fantastic and inspiring to follow along with that as I read the above books.  He set big goals, lost weight, founded a company, got married, built a retreat center, had a child, wrote several books, etc.  He is not done - he has several wonderful goals in mind for the days and years ahead!  He talks about how his early writing was often more victim mentality thinking, and I can see that.  Nowadays, he is using his time and energy to help true victims (people who genuinely need someone to rescue them from abuse, violence, or slavery) rather than wallowing in ongoing self-pity over his own past, and I love that more than I can say.  He has become the Hero who moves with courage, and he is the insightful Guide in many ways, as well.  He really has transformed, and that's a huge part of what makes these books ring true for me!

Anyway, yaaaay for Donald Miller (and Betsy and Emmaline).  Yay for his story and his books and his mission, and yay for feeling inspired to live a more meaningful story with my own life!!

As Peloton's Tunde Oyenin would say,
"It's a great day to go out and create great change!"