What If?
I’m a fan of Donald Miller, author of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and Blue Like Jazz. I also have a goal of buying him a cup of coffee sometime, but I digress.
His belief is that life is a story – and the reason most people have fairly boring lives is because they’re living boring stories.
Don recently posed the What If Challenge – and what follows is the first of his two posts that make up this challenge (I’ll post the second one later).
When novelists sit down to write a narrative, there is a question they ask themselves in order to create exciting and meaningful stories, and that same question can also create a more exciting and meaningful life. That question is: What if?
J.R.R. Tolkien once asked the question What if there existed a place called Middle Earth, and What if Middle Earth were under threat? Every good story begins with some form of this question, and so does every life.
Whenever a novel starts to drag, the writer simply has to ask this question, and suddenly life gets exciting again. What if there were a car accident, what if my protagonist won the lottery, what if my protagonist came home and his wife had left with all the furniture? A series of these questions will dislodge whatever fascinating thing is going to happen next in the story.
Now to be sure, you don’t have the power to win the lottery and I don’t recommend getting in a car wreck, but within limits, the question What if? can radically change our story and our lives.
Several years ago, Donald Miller asked the question What if the 360,000 churches in America could each have a mentoring program and out of that question came one of the most exciting adventures in my life, The Mentoring Project. Bill Hybles once asked What if there were a church in this field? Rick Warren asked What if we could bring peace to the continent of Africa? Out of these questions came stories that have positively affected millions.
What if you asked yourself a series of these questions? What if you got out a yellow pad and wrote down a few story turns that you could engage? What if you ran a marathon? What if you renewed your marriage vows? What if you quit your job? What if you brought home a puppy today? What if you and your family adopted a child?
If your story has gotten boring, perhaps it’s time to ask yourself the what if question.
Try this, in the comment box, just brainstorm five what if questions as fast as you can. Try to to take the suggestion seriously, but do it fast. What will begin to happen is you’ll begin to dream, you’ll stop thinking of life as stagnant, and you’ll be reminded that life, for the most part, is what you make of it.
Corey is the editor of Simple Marriage as well as a licensed marriage & family therapist. While he has a Ph.D. in Family Therapy, he only occasionally likes to be called doctor. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe so you don't miss any future posts.13 Responses to “What If?”
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[...] part 2 of Donald Miller’s What If Challenge post. To refresh yourself with part one, read here, then [...]
What if I stayed home with our daughter when she is born?
What if we went on a date once a week?
What if I planted a garden at our new house?
What if we took the week off to go to Lake Chelan?
What if we went on that honeymoon we’ve been talking about?
What a great blog. I’m adding you to my reader. I just started a blog about love, marriage, and sex. It’ll be great to refer to your blog.
Thanks!
Gwen
What if I pursued a career that really engaged me?
What if I traveled across the country on a motorcycle?
What if we cooked all of our food from scratch?
What if we tried to overwhelm someone with kindness every week?
What if I focused on more important things?
What if I love with total trust and openness?
What if I just show up at the sports park tomorrow?
What if I allow people to see who I really am?
What if I get rid of 25% of my stuff?
What if I choose what to do on the basis of the joy I expect to get from it?
1. What if I won the U.S. Open (golf not tennis)?
2. What if I won the following Masters?
3. What if I was on tour?
4. What if I ask myself these questions just about every weekend?
5. What if golf is really an adiction?
What if we moved to Hawaii?
What if I pursued photography full-time?
What if we started the outdoor ministry we’ve been talking about?
What if we only had the things we absolutely needed, and could pack everything into the trunk of a car and leave?
What if we only ate pure, whole foods, that the earth provides for us naturally?
What if we packed up everything & moved to the beach?
What if I told my husband I loved him more times in a day?
What if I money didn’t matter so much?
What things could I give up & still be happy?
What activities could I do more to bring even greater happiness to my life & the lives of my loved ones?
What if I quit my job like I’ve been wanting to?
What if I went to nursing school?
What if my blog took off and I got to do what I love?
What if we sought Jesus every day? Together?
What if we stopped caring about having solid jobs with insurance and good salaries and started caring about living our dreams?
What if I expressed love to my husband before waiting for him to?
What if I just closed my PR agency and started writing full-time?
What if I I told everyone that I teach exotic dance to everyday women for fun and its the most rewarding thing to see women over 40 feel sexy. for. just. fun?
What if I told my father that he scares me?
What if I told my sisters they are the most important people in my life next to my Husband?
Can I keep going? I likes this… BRILLIANT post.
What if is a great question. It’s even better with an answer and action. I’ve done some what if’s the last few years and it has made all the difference. I said, what if I could be intimate, what if I could be best friends with my hub, what if I started my own business, what if I got off the porch and started living. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Yeah baby!
Now I’m asking what if I got my house in order. What if I created some really cool art, what if I could make a difference in someone’s life, what if I could grow my business into a franchise? All great questions. I’m working on the answers.
What I do know at this point is….this summer I am jumping out of an airplane cause I want to know what it feels like to fly!
What if I discover a sustainable solution to the U.S. energy crisis?
What if I become a famous scientist?
What if we really truly acted like the energy and resources on this planet are finite?
What if we didn’t act selfish and lazy ever?
What if I was as passionate about teaching my daughter these things as I am in the ‘academic world’?
I think that “what if” is worth asking if you have the right outlook. My husband’s job moves us all over the country, so we’re always having to ask ourselves “what if we uproot our entire family to somewhere we’ve never been before?” We follow it up with questions like “what will we get to see that we’ve never seen before?” and “what will we get to do that we’ve never done before?” We know other families whose follow up questions are things like “what if we get there and we hate it?” and “what if nobody adjusts?” Obviously our outcomes are very different, but we started out with the same initial question.