THE CHASE

Thoughts On Quitting Your Job And Chasing Your Dreams

THE CHASE
Thoughts On Quitting Your Job And Chasing Your Dreams

Allison Vesterfelt
Prodigal Press Minneapolis

 2013 by PRODIGAL PRESS

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles. Edited by: Krisi Johnson Interior layout: Darrell Vesterfelt Cover design: One Town Creative

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Prodigal Press 701 N. 3rd St, Suite 201 Minneapolis, MN 55401 Created in the United States of America

Introduction: Everybody is Chasing Something

I was twenty-five years old before I realized I was chasing something. I was in graduate school at the time, getting a masters degree in English Education. I worked a part-time job waitressing in the evenings to help make ends meet, went to school or an internship during the day, and used every spare second I could find to write my Action Research. I wasnt sleeping much, or socializing much, and I was feeling burnt out. One night, during a break in my program, a friend invited me to an event, and I agreed to come. As we were driving back to my apartment, he pulled the car over. I have an idea, he said. I wasnt surprised. My friend was always cooking up something crazy. But I was a little hesitant to follow him as he climbed out of his SUV. I stood behind my open car door. He walked toward an abandoned warehouse. You coming? he asked, sounding the beep beep of the locking doors by pushing a single button on his key fob. I sighed. Here goes nothing. He led us to around the back of a warehouse to a staircase, and we climbed and climbed until I was out of breath. Where are we going? Trust me! he insisted. Moments later, we reached the top of a building, and there, like a movie, the Willamette River and Portland Skyline unfolded right in front of me. For a moment, I felt my heart open a little bit. Wow. I said, under my breath. Come on! My friend urged. I turned, and there was my friend, posed at the bottom of a ladder, a ladder that led to a billboard fifty feet above the roof of the warehouse. So, on a night when I would have been in tucked away in my quaint little apartment in Northwest Portland reading, writing and studying, I suddenly found myself a few stories above my favorite city, feet dangling over the edge of a billboard, talking with a friend about life and what mattered. What would you do with your life if you didnt have to worry about money? he asked.

If I didnt have to worry about money? I looked at him a little confused. Who doesnt have to worry about money? Just suspend reality for a minute. If you didnt have to worry about money, or about what people would say about your decision, or about achieving something specific if you could just dream something up, and then make it a reality what would you do? I paused and looked down at my feet. I didnt know. I had no idea what I was chasing. We talked about other things that night, but after I was home, lying awake in bed, staring at my ceiling fan spinning and spinning, I couldnt get that one question out of my mind. I wondered what I would really do if I didnt have to worry about money. What would I do if I wasnt trying to impress anyone? What about if I wasnt trying to achieve the comfortable life I thought you were supposed to have when you became an adult? Would I keep doing what I was doing? I wasnt sure, and the thought disturbed me. The truth is I was worried about all those things. I worried about money on a daily basis. I worried about what other people thought about my decisions, to the point that I would change my decisions if certain family members or friends didnt like them. I worried about living up to certain expectations I had for my life things like marriage, success and long-term stability. Most of the decisions I made each day, although not bad or wrong by themselves, were being made to satisfy these worries. The scariest part of all of it was, I didnt even know it was happening.

What are you chasing?

All of us are chasing something. The problem is, most of us just dont know what it is. That was me, working hard, following the rules of adult life I thought I was supposed to follow go to school, get a job, buy a house, get married but never stopping to think about what I was after. I was chasing money, stability and success without even realizing I was chasing them, and when I brought the decision into my conscious mind, I realized why I was so frustrated and burnt out all the time. I didnt want to chase those things. They werent worth it. I wanted to chase something different.

I wonder if that is you, too. I wonder if youve ever laid awake in bed at night, like I did, asking yourself, what am I chasing? What really matters to me? I wonder if you, like me, are accidentally chasing things you dont care much about. I wonder if youve laid your whole life down for these things, almost by accident, because you didnt realize what was motivating your decisions. And I wonder if you feel, like I did that night, that it might not be worth it. I wonder if you feel less than satisfied. As for me, I finished graduate school, got a full-time job and started looking to buy a house before I finally made the decision something had to change. For me, that meant quitting my job, moving out of my apartment, and going on a year-long, 50-state road trip to chase my dream of writing a book. Since then Ive gotten (and quit) two other part time jobs to chase that same vision. But that was just my dream, and my journey. Not yours. Your chase will look different than mine. After all, youre chasing something different. The path you take to get there will inevitably be different. But there is one thing your journey and mine will have in common. We will have to give up some things. Theres so much talk about quitting jobs these days. After awhile you start to think theres no way you can go after a dream unless you give up your 9-5. But if Ive learned one thing from talking to friends, and from my own experience chasing my dream, it is that quitting your full time job is not always right for every person, in every season. In fact, for some people it would be downright wrong. Still, everyone will have to give up something to chase their dream. It might be a job, it might be something different. We cant be sure what it is until we know what were chasing, and what is getting in our way. This book is not an ooey-gooey, hyper-inspirational you can be anything you want to be approach to living. In fact, just the opposite. I hope this book offers a very realistic, down-to-earth approach to what most of us call chasing our dreams. Its starts with the premise that everyone is chasing something, moves to the assumption that your chase will require sacrifice, and ends with a decision that ultimately you must make for yourself: What will you have to give up to chase what you ultimately want? Not everyone can or should quit their job to chase their dreams, but everyone will have to quit something. Maybe for you its a bad habit, or excessive worry, or procrastination. Or, maybe, for you, it is about quitting your job. But quitting any of that wont mean anything until you know what youre chasing, and why. The next ten chapters are designed to help you answer that question.

Chapter 1: Sometimes Your Dream Wont Pay The Bills

I have a friend who has always wanted to be a musician. If you ask her mom, shell show you pictures and videos of her daughter as a four-year-old, posing and staging her sisters as back-up singers and coordinating everything from the dance moves to when she would remove the microphone from its stand in order to get close enough to greet her adoring fans (which at the time included a lovely assortment of stuffed animals and her cat, Fluffy). As an adult, shes recorded a few albums, gone on tour, played hundreds of shows in front of audiences as big as a thousand, and during the day, she works at a coffee shop to help supplement her income. She is, in fact, chasing what really matters to her and part of that process means finding a way to meet her practical needs. Many of the things we chase in our lives wont have a financial value attached to them. In fact, they may have a negative financial impact, but that doesnt mean they arent worth the chase. Kids cost a ton of money, but Ive never heard a parent say, This isnt making me any money, so Ive decided its not worth it. No. In fact, if parents were employees, they would be perhaps the most dedicated group of people to their job despite the fact they arent earning a paycheck. Theyre simply motivated by something different than money, and I think we can learn a lot about motivations from parents. Some of the dreams we chase will come with a financial payoff. Some of them wont. Some will ebb and flow in that area over time. But if our motivation to pursue our dream is directly attached to the money it brings, we will ride the roller-coaster up and down, up and down of that attachment over time. Some of the most important things we do in our lives will have nothing to do with money. As for my friend, when someone asks her what she does, her first answer is never Im a barista. Because when someone asks her that question, she assumes they want to know what shes chasing. And right now, in this season of her life, shes chasing her career as a musician. So when someone asks what she does, she says, Im a musician, plain and simple. Right now her dream doesnt pay the bills. But that doesnt mean she doesnt go after it, and it doesnt mean she doesnt hope that, one day, it will. But for this season at least, making coffee is what she does to afford her the opportunity to do what she loves share her music with others.

The Job That Pays The Bills

Truthfully, I wish I would have had the insight of my friend who realized what she did to make money wasnt the whole of her identity. I would have saved myself from so much angst in the many years I spent working in coffee shops and at restaurants, or even as an English teacher in a middle school. To be fair, I liked many aspects of my jobs. I loved the fast-paced, customer service environment of waiting tables, and at Starbucks I enjoyed learning all the names and drinks of my regular customers. But especially as I got older, I hated telling people Im a barista when they asked what I did for a living. It just didnt feel right. It didnt feel the way it felt to say, Im a writer. I longed for the day I would be able to quit to do what I really loved full-time. And for some reason I didnt feel free to claim the title of writer until that happened. Now that I have quit those jobs to do what I really love full-time, Ive changed my perspective a little. I am grateful to be in the position Im in, and it does feel great to be a full-time writer, but I also wish I could go back and tell myself a couple of things. First, I wish I could remind myself that I was a writer all along. I didnt have to be doing it full-time, or make any certain amount of money to make that true. Second, I would tell myself that life is full of things I love and things I dont love, no matter what my job title is. And finally I would have said and that each season of life offers something beautiful and worthwhile if Im willing and able to look for it. Michael E Gerber, the author of the best-selling book The E-Myth says, The work we do is a reflection of who we are, and I would argue this is true no matter what our day job happens to be. Different seasons bring different jobs, tasks, and responsibilities; and in each of those seasons, the work we do is a reflection of our character. If were lazy at work (even at Starbucks) well be lazy writers, parents, and business owners, because our laziness is not a reflection of something outside of us (our job), it points to something inside of us (our character). If were fair-weather workers in our parttime jobs, if we let the mood of the day rule our attitude toward the task at hand, well be fair-weather chasers of our dream too. If we whine and complain about the work we have

to do to pay the bills, well whine and complain even when we get the opportunity to do the work we love, for ourselves. So often we expect quitting to solve all our problems, but in my experience its just the opposite. Quitting my full time job simply magnified the problems Id had along. I had a hard time keeping my cool with rude customers in the restaurants where I worked, and I have found that rude customers dont just go to restaurants, they are everywhere. I had a hard time drawing a boundary with people who tried to take advantage of the system at Starbucks, and I still have a hard time with that today. The difference is now the stakes are higher. Now Im the business owner. Now, if I dont keep my cool, and draw a boundary, who will? Chasing a dream, any dream, is hard, back-breaking work. If in this season you have to do a job you dont want to do, ask yourself what your attitude says about your character. Then, start to grow your character so that, if and when it comes time to quit, you will be strong enough to weather the storm. As for my many seasons working at restaurants and coffee shops, those jobs taught me about myself and gave me skills that bring variety and value to my writing. On top of that, they provided me everything a struggling artist could ask for while I wrote my first book a flexible schedule, health insurance, and most importantly free food and coffee. Each job was a necessary season of my chase. For more about what I learned working at Starbucks, read my post titled: 10 Things I Learned Working at Starbucks with a Masters Degree.

Your Dream Job

While I recognize that our dreams dont always pay the bills, I dont think this should discourage us from thinking about what our dream job would be if it did pay the bills. Something important happens when were given permission to answer this question, when were given the opportunity to think outside of the invisible parameters (real or imagined) that govern our lives. Something shifts inside of us when were able to escape from the trappings of anxiety or phone bills or car payments or the money we need to pay them. Ever since my friend asked me the question, what would you do if you didnt have to worry about money? I ask everyone I know. Because something huge happened to me

that day, and I want to pass on the favor. It was the first step in a long journey of discovering what I really wanted to chase. And it wasnt until I knew what I wanted to chase that I was able to start walking in that direction. Of course, what I want to chase has changed some as Ive pursued it, the same way your idea of a new city changes when you actually visit. Before you visit Boston, you may have heard stories or seen pictures or read books, and you likely have a general idea of what you might find, but it isnt until you actually arrive in the city that you start to see the specific sights and sounds and colors that make up its essence. The longer you spend there, the more specific it all feels. Dreams are no different. The vision clarifies as we chase it. The general idea stays pretty much the same but the specifics change as they come into focus. The specifics you imagined fade away, and the real specifics take their place. This is why dreaming is so important. Dreaming helps us to see the general. Heres what dreaming about my dream job did for me: Dreaming cleared out unhealthy motives by stripping away external motivators like success, money and recognition. Dreaming alerted me to the things I love, by reminding me what I would do on a daily basis if I could do whatever I wanted. Dreaming woke up my passions Dreaming allowed me to see how the things I wanted in life werent as far out of my reach as I always assumed. Strangely, and ultimately, it was the act of considering my dream job that freed me up to enjoy my day-to-day work at Starbucks, or a restaurant. Because once I knew what I was chasing, I could appreciate those jobs for what they were just a small season in a long journey I didnt fully understand quite yet, but one that I knew mattered because of how much it mattered to me.

Bridging the Gap

So how do we bridge the gap between the job that pays our bills and the one wed rather do full time? I think we have to start by acknowledging this might not be possible

for every person, in every season of life. If you blindly quit your job without considering the why or the how behind it, I believe youll end up disappointed. On the other hand, I do believe it is possible to creatively fund our dreams, both by working part-time jobs, and by innovating ways to turn a profit doing what we love. With the right motives, the right plan, and the right understanding, I believe this is more probable than most of us realize. Recently, I met a friend who I have to keep anonymous because of the delicate nature of her situation, but I want to tell you her story because I found it so inspiring. She was from a country that has experienced a great deal of political unrest in the past few decades, and her father was killed when she was very young. Her mother made ends meet by traveling to where she could find work, which often meant she would be away from home for weeks or months at a time. She was left to raise her younger siblings mostly by herself. As she became older, she started to see how her family wasnt the only one impacted by the violence in the country. She saw how many other children had lost their parents too, and that those children were like her in many ways alone, scared and learning to fend for themselves. So she decided she wanted to start an orphanage. Her vision was to create a refuge for young kids who had lost their parents and didnt have any other place to go. She knew she would encounter all kinds of obstacles to this vision she had no money, and no idea how to obtain the necessary government approval but miraculously, she was able to make her vision a reality. Ten years later the home is a refuge for dozens of displaced children in her country. This story is a reminder to me that even people with very few resources can be successful when theyre willing to act courageously and put in the hard work it takes to make their dream a reality. It reminds me how the biggest obstacles I face arent a lack of vision or resources or know-how. The biggest obstacles I face are these: I dont think I have what it takes, or I dont know what Im chasing. I am my own worst enemy. The complaints I hear from people who want to quit their full time jobs, but havent yet, are familiar to me because they are the same ones I gave before I made the jump. They sound like this: I cant. Theres no way. Theres too much standing in my way. My circumstances are especially complicated. That works for some people, but it wouldnt work for me because [fill-in-the-blank] Theres no point in dreaming about it if I wont ever be able to do it.

If you ask me, each of these excuses ignores the fact that everybody has obstacles to overcome when chasing what really matters to them; that while obstacles do present a real challenge, the challenges are not impossible to tackle; and that sometimes the people with the least advantage, and the most impossible obstacles, accomplish the greatest things. If you dont think you can make your dream job a reality if you feel like you lack the wisdom or resources, or time or know-how, think again. Ask yourself what it would look like if you got out of your own way. One of obstacles I considered to be most impossible to overcome when it came to my own chase was money. It just always seemed like I had to work so hard to make it, and it disappeared so quickly. So, when my husband and I first got married, we went through Dave Ramseys Financial Peace University course and started taking dramatic steps toward becoming debt-free. I also started following Dave Ramsey on Twitter. While I was writing this book one of his tweets caught my eye: Met an 18 year old who wrote an app for a game. Made $5 Million. Make your job Dave Ramsey (emphasis mine). I couldnt help but see a connection between the 18-year-old boy Ramsey was talking about here, my friend I described above, and ultimately, me. Regardless of age, or race, or country of origin, or skill, or gender, or background, or any of the things that make us remarkably different from one another, we have one thing in common. Were all chasing something. Well all have to overcome different obstacles on our journey, and let go of different things in our process, but were all uniquely equipped for our specific chase. The resources we need, the strength were looking for, the courage we cant imagine, the strategy we cant conceptualize right now its all around us, and even in us if well open our eyes to it. But we cant discover it until we begin the chase.

Chapter 2: The Dream Wont Fix Your Problems

If youre like me, you have all kinds of problems. You dont have enough time, or money, or energy. People are rude to you. Youre too busy. Youre bored. Youre disorganized. Youre too organized (you spend a weekend organizing your closet). You procrastinate. You get ahead of yourself. You hate your boss. You have too much food, and it goes to waste, or too little food, and have to go shopping at midnight. Youre late. Your car wont start. Your roommates (or your spouse) wont pick up their stuff. We are all full of problems. The easiest thing to do is blame our problems on outside circumstances. I cant tell you how often I get caught in this trap. When I get angry and raise my voice to my husband, rarely is my first response to think to myself, I wonder if Im being rude or selfish right now. Usually, my response is, if he would just pick up his dirty clothes off the floor, I wouldnt be so upset! This same phenomenon happens in our jobs. When we fail to complete a task on time, we are full of a million excuses. We didnt have enough time. The printer was broken. A co-worker didnt cooperate the way we needed. Our boss didnt give us enough direction. Every time Ive encountered a problem at my job, Ive been able to conjure up some excuse for why it exists. At every job Ive worked,whether customer service, writing, teaching, or anything else,Ive had a problem with feeling overwhelmed. At first, everything is okay, but then the work load ramps up, and I get more responsibilities, and the pressure mounts, and I just sort of lose it. My eyes glaze over, my brain shuts down, and I become less and less effective and engaged. Ive come up with a million excuses for that feeling. Ive told myself that my boss was too demanding, or my co-workers werent supportive, or that no one listened to me. Ive told myself people are impossible and, if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself ! Ive worked harder and longer, until finally I end up quitting, feeling bitter and under-appreciated for all of my thankless work. This position was impossible to fill. Ive told myself. The problem is, when I finally did quit my job to do freelance work on my own, I discovered my new job, the one I was making up as I went along, followed the same pattern. Except this time, my boss was me, my co-workers were me, and there was

nowhere to pass the blame. All the hopes I had for my problems going away when I quit my job disappeared. Ill share one more example. No matter where Ive worked, Ive felt like my leaders didnt do a great job of pitching the vision of the company to me. I was good at accomplishing daily tasks, and even fairly effective at executing bigger projects, but when I asked myself how this was all connected, I was sure. When it came to the meaning or purpose of it all, I felt lost. I came up with all kinds of excuses for this. My boss doesnt care about me, I figured, or he cares about me, but not about the company. Or maybe my boss doesnt know the vision either. But then, as you might be predicting by now, I quit my job to work for myself and I realized nothing had changed I had a very difficult time connecting my daily tasks to a greater vision. Our problems follow us. Have you ever noticed this? If youre always running your bank account to zero, youll do that no matter what job you work even if you get a bigger paycheck. If you have a hard time cooperating and working as a team, youll have that hard time, no matter how generous and magnanimous your co-workers are. If you are always at odds with your boss, you will be at odds with every boss even if that boss is you when you quit your job to work for yourself. The point of all of this isnt to say there is no such thing as a better job than the one youre working. There are better jobs and worse jobs for you. The point is to say that no job will be a solve-all for your problems. In fact, the people who manage to create their dream jobs out of thin air are usually also the people who are able to make the most out of their situation, regardless of problems. These people are problem-solvers, not blame-pushers and problem-avoiders. When faced with a problem, no matter how complex or impossible, they figure out a way to solve it. These people are the movers and shakers and innovators of our generation. And the best news of all is this: You can be one of them. You simply have to decide to start.

Whats Your Problem?

The beauty of problems, if were willing to pay attention to them, is problems tend to point us in the right direction. Problems are often like a giant red arrow, the signpost pointing directly toward what we are chasing. Look over here! theyre saying. So, if you

dont know what youre chasing yet, but you have problems, I would challenge you to take a look at them. They might be telling you something. I hadnt been writing online for too long when I realized I should submit my work to some online publications. So I mustered up the energy it took to put a few things together, and the self-confidence I needed to make the submissions, and then I waited. And I waited. And I waited. Sometimes I received rejection letters, months after the fact. Other times I never heard back about an article. And aside from being emotionally taxing, I saw this as a practical problem as well. How was I supposed to know if they were going to use my article? Finally, I heard back from one publication and was thrilled to find they were going to use my piece. I did a little dance in my living room. Im a real writer now! I wanted to scream. Im being published on such-and-such publication! But when the day came for my piece to publish, I found my words, and my title, had been significantly edited, without my permission. It wasnt the end of the world. It wasnt like they put swear words in my mouth or anything, and when I asked if they would let me know in the future when they made significant edits to my piece, they gladly agreed, but also explained how this was standard industry practice, for online publications. I understood, and tried to be gracious about it, but this was a problem for me. Standard industry practice? Where does standard industry practice come from? Can I change it? Can I create an online space that does things differently? It was out of conversations like these that Prodigal Magazine was born. Many of the problems I faced as a writer pointed me toward what Im doing now, co-owning and running a small online publication with my husband. Granted, Ive learned a lot since then. As Managing Editor of Prodigal Magazine, I dont respond directly to everyone who submits an article. This isnt because I dont care about writers, but because there simply isnt time. And we do sometimes change titles before publication, but I ask our editors to confer with the writers before changing their content. I do the very best I can do to honor the dream I had while also living in the confines of my circumstances. Like I discussed in chapter 1, I work hard to keep the general vision the same, even when the specifics must change. What Im chasing when it comes to Prodigal Magazine is an online space where people feel safe to share in a vulnerable way; a space where writers feel honored and celebrated for sharing their stories, and where readers find hope by connecting with

others who have shared their struggle. We dont always meet the mark. Sometimes we lose our way. But that is what were chasing. I want to challenge you to think about the recurring problems you face in your job. Are you always late? Do you work more hours than you get paid for? Does your boss drive you crazy? Do your co-workers not treat you with respect? Why do you think these problems exist? Is it possible it has something to do with you, rather than your outside circumstances? Once youve pinpointed those problems in your job, ask yourself what you could do to solve them. In some cases, you might be able to solve the problems, or at least seek progress, in your current work environment. In other cases, it might be time to move on. But determining your problems before you leave prevents you from the unfair expectation that a new job, or a lack of a job, will solve all of your problems. And even better, looking closely at your problems might just point you in the direction of your dreams.

When The Tables Turn

When I quit my part-time job at Starbucks to run Prodigal Magazine full time, and to work on writing my first book, Packing Light, it was the third time I had made such a move. And just like all the times in the past, I took my usual Ally problems (the ones I described above) into the job with me disorganization, lack of vision and feeling overwhelmed. Except now, I was the boss. It never occurred to me before I became the boss that someone had to be the boss, but its true. If you work for yourself, or for someone else, someone has to be the boss. Someone has to set the schedule, hold people accountable, delegate responsibilities, cast vision and mediate conflict. The tasks of the boss makes him or her an integral person in the organization, even if it doesnt necessarily make him or her the most likable. What I found when I became my own boss was that there was still a boss (shocking, I know). There was still someone who made me get out of bed, even when I didnt feel like going to work. There was still someone who didnt do a great job of casting vision (maybe because it was still fuzzy to her). There was still someone who had to hold me accountable to the work I agreed to do, even if it was too much. Except now there was one major difference: that person was me!

Two things happened to me when I came to this realization. First, I realized the problem had never been about my boss. The disorganization, the disconnection from the greater vision of the organization, the feelings of being overwhelmed all of these things were problems that had been inside of me. If I wanted the problems to go away, I didnt need another job or another boss, I needed a new approach and attitude. At first, I found this realization really depressing. I didnt have the first clue how to change my attitude, or my approach to my work. But as I started reading books and talking to friends and mentors about my position, I uncovered a variety of strategies to try. I began to make progress with my problems, rather than avoid them, for the very first time in my life. That was a great feeling! The second thing that happened was I gained sympathy for the boss of an organization. Where I used to be critical of the boss tone or approach, I found understanding. Where I used to be resentful that the vision wasnt made clear to me, I found forgiveness, realizing that sometimes vision unfolds over time, and that each person in the organization, no matter what his or her place in the hierarchy, gets to play a role in creating that vision. And I realized that most bosses, most of the time, are doing the best they can. This realization was important for me because it helped me see the inherent connection between my position as a barista, a waitress, a customer service representative, a teacher, and then a business owner. No matter what my job title, my basic tasks remain still the same work hard, own what is mine, and recognize the ways in which my poor work ethic reflects holes in my character.

When it Isnt Glamorous

The first time I quit my job, it was to go on a year-long, 50-state road trip with my friend Sharaya (a musician) so I could realize my dream of writing a book. I kept a blog while we traveled, and she played shows along the way to help fill our gas tanks (and our stomachs) and we both worked together to sell merchandise and book shows and find places to sleep for free. I wrote a book about our experience called Packing Light: Thoughts on Living Life with Less Baggage (Moody, 2013). The whole journey ended up being really different than I expected, mostly in good ways, but the biggest misconception I had before we started was that, once we quit our jobs and made it out on the open road, our lives would be glamorous. Wed drive where

we wanted, do whatever we wanted, and spend time with whomever we found interesting. We would have total freedom, and it would be great. What I found was that (surprise, surprise) life goes on, even when youre on 50 state road trips. While we were gone, I broke up with my boyfriend, lost an aunt to an unexpected medical complication, fought with my sister, consoled Sharaya when she lost her condo back home, got behind on e-mail and brushed my teeth twice a day, sometimes in a parking lot using a water bottle. Of course, there were high moments on the road, too. We marveled at the grandness of the Black Hills National Forrest, drooled over the Grand Canyon, danced together at a cowboy bar in Deadwood, South Dakota, enjoyed blueberry muffins and fresh lobster in Maine, gorged ourselves on Chicago-style deep dish pizza, and jumped up and down when Sharaya booked a show at the famous Hotel Cafe. But isnt this just like life? There are some high moments and some low moments. And then there are long waiting periods in between, just black asphalt and yellow lines that repeat themselves over and over and over again. Overall, its not so glamorous, but when you look back over your life, years later, you realize how you cant separate the bad experiences from the good ones, or the boring ones. They all come together as a package. And if you arent willing to show up for the hard stuff, or the mediocre stuff, you wont be there for the amazing stuff either. If I could go back and tell myself something the day I left on my trip, I would say: Dont chase the glamour. Youll wear yourself out. Instead, chase what you know is important, and there will be many glamorous things along the way. There will be some hard moments, and there will be tons of mediocre one, but it is worth it because what you are chasing matters, because you matter, and because this is the only shot you get at living a story worth telling.

Chapter 3: Responsibilities Dont Go Away

When I first took the leap to quit my job and chase my dream of writing a book, the thing I worried about most was abandoning my responsibilities. I worried about rent, and my car payment, and my school loans. I worried about how I was going to explain to my roommate that I was leaving before our lease was up, and wondered how I would find a way to pay rent while I was gone. And my biggest fear, as irrational as it sounds now, was that if I left my hometown at twenty-six years old, I would never find a husband. The problem was I also felt really convicted it was right for me to go. The combination of feeling convicted I was meant to move in this certain direction, and feeling anxious over the responsibilities that seemed to be at conflict with the decision, felt like torture. So I decided to move forward with my dreams, and ignore my responsibilities (for now). It went against everything in my nature, but I couldnt see any other way to resolve the problem. I put my loans in deferment and figured I would worry about them later. We ran into car trouble on the road trip, made an expensive decision to keep going, and told ourselves we would figure it out when we came home. I dont regret those decisions, but I wish I would have realized that there was no way to ignore my responsibilities forever. I wish I would have thought about what my plan would be when I had to face the consequences of my decisions, later. Because I would eventually have to face the consequences. Now, or later, my responsibilities would be there waiting for me. Responsibilities look different for each of us. My personal responsibilities were pretty minimal at the time I made my leap, which made it possible for me to do what I did. I didnt have a spouse, or children, or anyone else depending on me to support them. My bills were fairly simple. A cell phone, a small insurance payment, and my school loans from graduate school. But it wouldnt be accurate to say that a lack of responsibilities made it easier for me to take the step of courage I took. We all have responsibilities, and we all have to decide what it looks like to be accountable to them without abandoning our chase. Courage is not neglecting our responsibilities; its learning how to be accountable to those responsibilities while being committed to the chase. Courage will look different for each of us. For some, moving, or going on a trip, is absolutely the most courageous thing to do. For others, staying put in a marriage that feels less than satisfying, or with young

children who seem to steal every last drop of energy you have all because you know the role you play in the story youre building with them thats courageous. The key is finding how to live a life of courage that doesnt abandon your responsibilities, but actually makes you more attuned to them.

Being Tuned To Responsibilities

I remember crunching the numbers for our road trip a dozen times before giving up. No matter how I did it, shows plus merchandise plus tips did not equal the amount we would need to cover food and gas. No matter how much I cut our expenses, or stretched our projected income, we still ended up in the red. There wasnt enough money to make it. Still, I had this strange feeling that, if we took the leap, we were going to be okay. In the end, the road trip won out. It was so important to me, I was willing to give up anything to get it. And since I couldnt figure out a plan that would work, I just decided not to have a plan at all. I dont regret my decision to go on the road trip. Without the road trip, I would never have written Packing Light; I wouldnt currently have the opportunity to write full time; and wouldnt have met my husband, the one thing I was sure I would never get from taking such a leap. I do, however, wish I wouldnt have adopted the position of apathy and denial when it came to my responsibilities. Consequences dont go away when we deny them. They compound on each other. If I were giving advice to the version of me that let go of her baggage and went on a road trip years ago, I would tell myself to develop a plan for my finances, even if it wasnt a perfect one. There may have been certain unknowns in the plan, or hopes that I had no way to quantify or guarantee, but I would have advised myself to write it out, on paper, so I knew exactly the risk I was taking. The crazy thing is, had I done this had I calculated how much interest my school loans were going to accrue while they were in deferment, and taken an honest look at this number Im convinced I would have made the same decision I made. If I had been honest with myself about how much money it was going to cost to complete our trip, and known ahead of time it was going to clear out the savings Id been putting away for so long, I still would have made the decision to go. Thats how important this dream was to me!

But, by staying tuned in to my responsibilities, by making a plan, I would have been making those sacrifices with my eyes wide open. At least then I would have avoided the fear and anxiety I felt when I had to face the reality I had been pushing aside. How much better would it have been to be living in reality all along? We dont like to live in reality when reality stinks, when the future is uncertain, or when we realize we dont have control over everything. None of us do. Thats the reason I avoided being tuned to my responsibilities, and maybe its the reason you do the same. Its hard to be tuned to the reality that a marriage needs work, or that life is short, or that a business might fail if we dont change the way were approaching it. Still, our marriages, our businesses, and our lives are our responsibility. Arent they? They are part of what were chasing. If we dont take responsibility for them, who will? Being tuned to our responsibilities; having a plan for how were going to manage them and stay committed to them, even if it means more work or more money or more energy in the long run, is not the easiest way to live, but it is the only way to live fully engaged and aware or what were chasing. It is the only way to have our eyes wide open to the kind of sacrifice its going to take to get there.

A Different Kind of Responsibility

Before I move on from the discussion of responsibilities, I want to talk about a different kind of responsibility, one that we must discuss in addition to the practical concepts of paying our bills, feeding our children, and fulfilling the obligations weve taken on. I believe we have a responsibility to stay in tune with our true selves. This responsibility is less tangible, and more difficult to describe, which is why I think so many of us ignore it. But I believe it is as important as the responsibilities we have to go to work and pay our rent. I believe I have a personal responsibility to do what makes me come alive. One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from John Eldredge who says, Dont ask yourself what this world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and do that, because what this world needs are people who have come alive. That quote makes me think, what would this world look like if each of us were doing work that made us come alive? It would be a better place to live, dont you think? I recognize each of us go through seasons where we dont feel very alive, no matter what were doing. We fight grief and depression and fear and self-doubt, and we struggle

to keep our hope. There are weeks and months that feel like a grind. During those times you might find yourself thinking, Youre lucky I got out of bed this morning, let alone stayed responsible to some slippery sense of my true self. Or, maybe thats just me. But despite those seasons where we must to do things we dont particularly feel like doing, and where we struggle to see the point or connection of it all, something never changes. We are becoming something, becoming someone. And at the same time we must keep an eye on our practical responsibilities, we also must stay tuned to that little voice inside of us that says, this way and that one, that reminds us this is good for you and thats not. We must allow that voice to guide us to becoming the best version of ourselves. Martha Graham puts it this way: There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is transmitted through you into action, and because there is only one of you, in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is or how valuable or how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. Martha Graham, Quoted by Agnes DeMille, Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham

I would argue we have a responsibility to chase what brings us life. Im not saying we abandon all of our practical responsibilities to do this. In fact, I think life is a delicate mix of practical responsibilities and spiritual ones. But Im also discovering as I go that, when I practice presence and gratitude, the line between the two is actually quite thin.

Chapter 4: The Difference Between Helping & Creating

I dont know about you, but all this talk about responsibility and money has me sweating a little. Because, when Im being honest with myself, and most in-tune with my responsibility to my true self, I have to admit I dont care much about money. Dont get me wrong, I appreciate the freedom money affords as much as the next person, but Im not very good at making it and I always feel sort of guilty about needing too much of it for anything. Ive spent plenty of time worrying about money, especially since I quit my job. I would love to have a life where I didnt have to think twice before writing my rent check (do I have enough to cover this month?) or before booking a flight to see my family for the holidays (can we afford it?). At the same time, Ive gotten really used to worrying about money, and Im not sure I would know what to do with a ton of money if I had it. As an artist, and a woman who would be most in tune with her true self when making beautiful things (not thinking twice about how much money she was making in the process) Ive had a hard time creating a balance between practical responsibilities and more spiritual ones. Even though Ive quit my job to do what I love full-time, Im still not totally sure how to make money for my art. I know its possible. Ive watched others, who have similar goals and visions to mine, generate an income doing what they love. But Ive never found much success on my own in that area. That is, until I met my husband. I had been without a regular paycheck for nearly two years when we were first introduced. I was living in Portland, Oregon at the time, freelance writing and substitute teaching when I could get jobs. My financial situation had been precarious for awhile, but by the time Darrell and I connected I was collecting food stamps and feeling pretty humiliated. As far as I was concerned, this was it. I was on the verge of failure. Darrell was in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the time. He was also freelancing, as a content marketing and social media consultant, and working for a small start-up parttime. I wrote an article for a site he visited daily, and he read it and reached out and we started talking over the phone and Skype. A month later he invited me to come to Minnesota for a couple of days to meet in person. When I arrived, we started working together from coffee shops each day, and immediately developed this natural rhythm. Suddenly, the thing that had seemed so hard monetizing the work I was already doing, connecting with new clients, and processing payables and receivables, was a breeze.

I hardly had to think about it. I could simply do what I was good at, write, and work would fall into my lap. Darrell was taking care of everything. For a long time I couldnt put my finger on it. I knew our skills sets were different, and I assumed we just made a really good match, both personally and in business. But the longer we did what we were doing, the more I realized it wasnt just about skills (although our skills certainly played a role). Skills can be taught. The success we found together that we hadnt found by ourselves had to do with the roles we were playing. Theres a difference between helpers and creators, and we need both. Each of us are helpers and creators at different seasons and in different arenas of our lives, and in fact, sometimes we have to be both at the same time. But the roles are different enough that, if we dont define them, well be confused about why one role isnt being fulfilled and the other one is. Before I get started defining the roles, I just want to make sure Im clear so there isnt any confusion: There is a difference between helping and creating. We need both helpers and creators in order to get what were chasing. One is not a higher order than the other. We are all both helpers and creators, during different seasons and in different arenas of our life, and sometimes both at the same time. Knowing the difference between the two will free us to play our specific role well.

Creators
Creators are do-ers. Theyre the ones with their hands in the dirt, their feet on the ground. Michael Gerber calls them technicians, and my friend Ben Arment calls them artists (as opposed to producers). Regardless of what you call them, these are the people who are down on their knees in the garden, or poised in front of their computers, ready to type the words that come to their heart. Creators are the people who are out in front, imagining and re-imagining the world the way they want it to be. Although creators and helpers ultimately have the same objective to get to what youre chasing creators have different daily priorities than helpers. Creators have to listen to, and be in tune with, the true self, the spiritual self, the self that is guiding the

creative project. With a strong vision for what they are creating, these people must forage fear, self-doubt and insecurity in order to be obedient the creative vision theyve been given. Creators are right in the mess of it. The work of the creator is to be obedient to this vision at all costs. Literally. The creator is rarely concerned with paying the bills, or with the practical aspects of the job. He or she is mostly focused on making sure the piece of art the event, or the book, or the painting lives up to his or her expectation. Theres just one problem. Creators are so in it with what theyre creating, they have a hard time being objective. They will never realize their vision without help. Thats where the helpers come in.

Helpers
Helpers are contributors. They do exactly what it sounds like from their name they help. Since they dont have to listen carefully to their own artistic vision in that space or season, they are available to listen well to the vision relayed by the creator, and to think more practically, and more critically, about what needs to be done. Helpers literally help bring the artistic vision to fruition. One way helpers do this is by asking questions of creators. Because they are not as emotionally connected to the project, they can think about practical problems and holes that might be there. If the project is a party, they might ask practical questions about capacity and budget. If its a book, they might have concerns with title or marketability. These questions might seem in conflict with the vision itself, but at the end of the day, theyre not. Theyre the unique value the helper brings to the table. At the same time, good helpers dont offer advice or critique where it isnt solicited. They ask, how can I help? and serve the mission that is already in place. This might seem in contrast with the role of asking questions, but it isnt. Helpers are not blind followers or go with the flow people, theyre critical thinkers who are also promoters, marketers, strategists, contributors and organizers and who ultimately have the best interest of the creator at heart. Helpers are not less important than creators, or less creative, or less intelligent. Without helpers, the job of creators would be moot. Books would be written, but might never be read. Events would be planned, but never attended, or even executed. Paintings

would be painted, but perhaps never displayed or enjoyed. Helpers are a critical part of the process; and healthy people are both helpers and creators in different seasons and areas of their life.

The Dilemma
Although healthy people are both creators and helpers in different areas and seasons of their lives, its easy to get stuck doing one or the other. Ive found myself stuck as the helper for many reasons, sometimes because I wrongly believed it was the more noble of the two roles, and other times because I was truly afraid to create for myself. At times Ive found myself afraid of the responsibility and accountability that comes with creating. Just as easy as it is to think helping is more noble than creating, its common to get caught feeling like creators are more important than helpers, because they are the ones casting the vision and steering the ship. Getting caught in this trap, however, stunts the purity of our creativity, and prevents us from connecting with those who are offering to help. When we lose touch with those people, we arent able to lead them well. Being a good helper actually makes us a better creator, and vice versa. Ultimately, when it comes to the business I now run with my husband, we are both creators and helpers in different spheres and at different moments. What Ive found is that it is only when I practice both roles in my life that Im able to fulfill each with excellence, to find equilibrium and balance. It is helpful to ask ourselves, in each arena of life am I helping or creating? so we know how to play the role well. If were creating something, we need to recognize we will need many people to help us build. If were helping, we have to be able to recognize and see how we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves.

Here are a few thoughts in review:

Good helpers dont offer advice or critique where it isnt solicited. Helpers ask, how can I help? and serve the mission or vision thats already in place. Good creators, on the other hand, solicit the right advice from the right people at the right time. They dont bend to every persons critique, but they receive healthy criticism and allow it to adjust their course.

Good creators have a vision for where they are going, and bring helpers along with them. Sometimes we get stuck helping others (always riding the coattails of their success or ideas) because were scared to create something for ourselves. Sometimes we get stuck believing that helping is more important than creating, like were more humble or better servants of our community if were always serving someone elses vision. Creating is not more important than helping, and if we are only creators for our whole lives, and never helpers, we miss out on the benefit of mutual learning and growth. We also run the risk of growing prideful and self-centered.

Why It Matters
When I quit my job the first time, my entire focus was on writing a book. After all, thats what I was chasing, wasnt it? What I didnt realize was that there was more to creating the dream job I wanted than just completing a really compelling novel (which, by the way, is a full time job in itself ). I needed to build an online platform, connect with publishers, agree upon contracts and, oh yeah, make money to buy groceries in the meantime (minor detail). I wish I would have realized, before I quit my job, rather than after, that theres a difference between helping and creating and that I needed both. Without the creator, I would only be concerned with the practical aspects of the project, like marketing and generating income and staying within a schedule and budget. I would lose the creative focus for the project, and never develop into my true self. Without the helper, on the other hand, I would constantly live in the hypothetical, failing to see the practical implications of the decisions I made, and eventually losing opportunities to do what I love. It is possible to be helper and creator for my own project, but not easy. I can hustle for awhile, and try to compartmentalize to cover both roles, but not for long. I can write my own book, and market it but its difficult. I can plan my event, and coordinate all the specific details, and promote it, but it probably wont have the success it would have had if I had asked for help. When I am both the helper and creator, I have to realize Im doing two (or more) jobs at once, and that sometimes I will have to take off my creator hat and be a helper,

who looks at the project practically. Sometimes I will have to take off the helper hat, who is worried about the low balance in my bank account, and put on the hat of the creator, who just writes and writes until its perfect. Ultimately, the purpose for thinking about helpers and creators is not to weigh one against the other, or draw a hard line for who should be which, when. It is to grow an appreciation for both roles. This makes me thankful for those who have helped make my creative projects a reality, and also makes me more inclined to offer my willful, gracious help to other creators, without ask of anything in return.

Chapter 5: Planning for Failure

It seems so nice to lay it out that way helpers and creators, this job and that one, which role are you playing, etc. It makes it seem so nice and pretty, like, if you just follow this small set of rules and guidelines, everything will be okay. But it wont. Everything will not be okay. If you choose to live a life where youre chasing what you believe matters, you better start planning for failure. I dont mean to be a downer, but I figure I might as well get the bad news out of the way right off the bat (that way I can get to the good news later). Because the one thing consistent with anyone who is chasing anything important is that their lives are filled with failure. This is something I wish I would have made peace with before I quit my full-time job so many years ago. No one makes it through life without a brush with failure, but it is possible to arrange your life in such a way that failure will be less likely. I ordered my life in this way for a long time. I tried to avoid the inevitable failure that came with learning a new job, or new position, by staying in the same, comfortable job for as long as possible. I avoided rejection (which I considered failure) in dating by refusing to flirt with guys, brushing off the act as if it were beneath me. I avoided failure in relationships by distancing myself whenever things became tense. One of my biggest concerns with quitting my job to go on the road trip was that it might set me up for failure. Heres the thing. Quitting your job to chase your dream, regardless if that dream is writing a book, being a mom, or starting your own business, will set you up for failure. You can count on it. It might set you up for financial failure, or practical failure, or relationship failure. But if youre prepared for it, you wont have to see your failures as an indication youre on the wrong track. Just the opposite. Youre see those failures as evidence youre exactly where youre supposed to be.

When Failure is Expected

In 2012 Darrell and I quit our part-time jobs and stepped down from our ministry position where we lived in Florida to move to Minnesota and work for Prodigal Magazine full-time. This wasnt the first time we had made a cross-country move, or the first time we had quit our jobs, or the first time we had started our own business, so we

felt like we had a pretty good handle on what was coming. Maybe in some ways, we did. But I think I was wrong in one clear way. Usually, I think of the trajectory of my life looking like a graph charting positive sales at a company over the course of several months, kind of like the chart below. I might struggle at first to get things going, I think to myself, but if Im doing this right, I should start to see steady, consistent progress over time. There might be a few small glitches here and there, but mostly, its a nice, steady incline up the hill.

At first, this is kind of how it started for Darrell and I with Prodigal. As I anticipated, we did have a hard time getting the wheels moving at first. We kept pushing, and finally did gain some momentum. And, after six months of really back-breaking work, we started to see progress. I was thrilled. Finally, I could take a deep breath, I figured. It could only be uphill from here. I was wrong. My biggest failures as Managing Editor of Prodigal Magazine actually came after we started gaining momentum, not before. In fact, the more progress we made as an organization, and the more progress I made as an individual, the more opportunities there were for me to fail. Looking back now, this makes perfect sense. Making progress

propelled us and therefore me into unfamiliar territory, and the only way to explore that unfamiliar territory was to walk right into the possibility of failure. Most of the failure I experienced wasnt something that could have been avoided or was an oversight on our part (although there were plenty of those, too). Most of my failures were just a normal, natural part of the process of learning and growing. In fact, if I would have planned for it, I might have been able to see how failure was the only way to gain familiarity with the new terrain I was exploring. Perhaps I wouldnt have allowed my failures to get me down. I love what Paul Angone, author of 101 Secrets for Your Twenties, and blogger at All Groan Up, has to say about failure. He says, The potential for embarrassment and greatness exist in the same place. I agree. I would add: In order to get one, you must risk both. What if we planned for failure? What if we saw failure, not as a sign we should throw in the towel, put down our bat, and go back to sit on the bench, but as a sign we are in exactly the right place, our sweet spot, the best place to learn? What if we saw our failures as an opportunity for God to show us grace? What if we saw it as an incredible opportunity to become a person worthy of the calling we so long to live out?

The Good News

The good news about failure is this: it is not the end of us. Recently I attended one of Donald Millers Storyline conferences and when it came time to discuss failure, he said, Failure is not a judgement, its an education. This is the advice he gives to those (like me) who are especially afraid of failure. If you have a fear of failure, go out and fail on purpose. Seriously, go out and fail five times fast. If you fear rejection from the opposite sex, ask the next person you see on thestreet to marry you. Get it over with. Discover for yourself you are allowed to fail. (Storyline 2.0, p 62) What Im not suggesting is that we all go out and live recklessly, without thinking about the consequences. What I am suggesting is that we would all experience more freedom, creativity and joy if we released ourselves from the fallacy of perfection. It

doesnt exist, it is impossible to achieve, and we can all stop holding ourselves to this impossible standard. And the good news, the really good news about all of this is not just that failure is not the end of us. It is that failure is the beginning of us. It is our starting place. It humbles us in the best kind of way, helps us to see our tiny little place in the giant, cosmic, story being written, and in turn connects us to our Creator. It is from this place of connection that the best version of ourselves, the most alive and true and gracious version of ourselves shows up, and were able to start living in freedom and grace the story weve been wanting to live all along.

Our Response to Failure

Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and co-author of The Art of Possibility suggests we dont just need to change the way we think about failure, we must change the way we respond to it. His students come to him trained in classical music and conditioned by a highly competitive environment, believing there is no room for failure, and that even perfection isnt quite good enough. To those students he says: It is only when we begin to make mistakes in performance that we can really begin to notice what needs attention... I actively train my students that when they make a mistake, they are to lift their arms in the air, smile, and say, how fascinating! How fascinating! What if this was our response to failure? What if we planned to fail, and decided ahead of time that, when we did, we would respond by saying: How interesting! Look at what I just learned about myself, about my craft, and about the world. What if we looked at failure in amazement and wonder, instead of fear and trepidation, or devastation and deflation. What if we decided failure was actually a good thing?

Fears vs. Discernment

I cant, in good faith, move on from this chapter without discussing the difference between fear of failure and a your discernment that a person, situation or direction is not good for you. There is a distinct difference, although sometimes the line between them is thin and fuzzy. If you ignore the first, youll find the freedom and life Ive been discussing this far. If you ignore the second, you may get just the opposite a circumstance that crushes your spirit and steals your life. I definitely dont have all the answers in this area, but here is one thing Ive learned by making mistakes on both sides. Fears are loud, and discernment is quiet. Generally, when Im trying to make a decision between going this way, or going that way, my fears are screaming at me, warning me about all the possible dangers ahead. My discernment, on the other hand, is whispering to me, softly: that isnt the way. It seems weird that it would be this way, if you ask me. I wish my fears would be the quiet voices, and that discernment would be loud. It would make so much more sense. After all, my fears are so often lying to me, and I can trust my discernment to tell the truth. But one thing Ive learned by listening to the quiet voice of my discernment over the loud voice of my fear is this: In order to hear, I have to get quiet, and lean in to where the voice is coming from. I dont know if God intended it this way or not, but either way, Ive found it to be really helpful. Practicing the discipline of tuning out my fears and tuning into my discernment actually brings me into intimacy with Jesus. It quiets the noise and sheds the distractions. It brings him close to me, and me close to him. And the closeness and intimacy we develop in that space, Im finding, is actually the only thing I need in order to move forward in my journey.

Chapter 6: Adjusting Course

One of the things our failure does for us is inform us about how to continue, even if it means adjusting our course. Whether our failure is some unpredictable oversight on our part, or whether it comes from not listening to that quiet voice of discernment I just discussed, failure often leads us right into the middle of a spirit-deadening mess. From this place, its always difficult to know how to continue, or to even to see through the clouds and know where youre headed. But just as our failure leads us to this messy middle, so often it also offers a way out. Several years ago, just after I finished graduate school, I decided to spend the summer in South America. There was a program through my university that allowed me to spend a little over a month in Quito, Ecuador teaching at one of the schools there, and since I had always wanted to go to Peru to hike to the top of the ancient ruins Macchu Pichu, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity. To top it all off, I had a friend who lived in Costa Rica and had given me the open invitation to come visit anytime I want! The whole thing seemed so perfect. To be honest, as I planned the trip, I had basically no reservations about going. My travel arrangements between Portland, Oregon and Quito, Ecuador would be taken care of by the university, and I would just have to figure out how to get from Quito to Peru, then to Costa Rica, then back to Quito. It couldnt be that hard, could it? I had done a ton of traveling already, in Europe and China, and all over the United States, so I was pretty confident in my abilities to get around. People warned me (mostly my parents) that South America wasnt like Europe, that cities like Quito, Ecuador and Lima, Peru had a reputation for petty crime, and that I would need to be extra careful for my own safety, but I mostly ignored them. I knew they had my best interest in mind, but I also figured they were being paranoid. During my first few weeks in Ecuador, nine of the fourteen Americans I worked with at the small, private high school in the hills of Quito, had been robbed in one way or another. One had her wedding ring stolen in broad daylight. Another, her camera. A third had a group of teenage boys rip her necklace right off of her neck. Quito was a lovely city, one of my favorites Ive ever visited, and I would go back in a heartbeat. But by the time my internship was up in Quito, and I was meant to travel to Lima to meet friends and make the climb to Macchu Pichu, I felt this still, small voice creeping up: Dont be afraid, it said. But dont be stupid.

At that point, I realized I had misjudged my circumstances, but I still wasnt sure how to continue. I wasnt willing to throw in the towel and go home (and I dont really think it would have been necessary) but I did find myself in a place where I realized I wouldnt feel comfortable moving forward unless I chose to adjust my course.

The Hard Part About Adjusting

The hardest part about adjusting course was, for me, it took humility. One particularly emotional day, which happened to also be Mothers Day, I called home to talk to my family. I didnt want to use the phone at my host familys house, so I walked down the street and found a pay phone, in a tiny booth, with a door. I locked myself inside and dialed the familiar numbers to my childhood home. After a few minutes of waiting, heard my dads voice. Immediately, I began to cry. Im sure my dad was a little disturbed to hear whimpering and sniffling on the other end of the line, so his voice grew a little nervous. Hello? Ally? he said. You were right! I cried, crunching myself down to the bottom of the booth so passersby couldn't see. Its dangerous here and Im scared. I dont know what to do. There I was, a 25-year-old grown woman, crouched down low in a tiny little phone booth, crying to my mommy and daddy. Oh, and Happy Mothers Day, by the way. Im thankful for the grace of my parents in that moment. The advice they gave me wasnt to give up on my journey because I made a wrong turn, even though it would have been easy for them to go there. After all, they were right. They could have rubbed it in, and convinced me to abandon the objective altogether. Instead, their advice was this: Let us help you adjust your course. My mom called a travel agent to book me a plane ticket between Quito and Lima, so I wouldnt have to take a bus, and my dad encouraged me to reach out to a friend on Facebook who had family outside of Quito. It wasnt easy, but acknowledging my failure for what it was helped me to move to a safer way. As I look back on this experience, I realize there are three things I had to do in order to make adjustments and get my journey back on course. I had to call my failure what it was. I had to admit that I had made a wrong turn somewhere. Sometimes were so scared to admit were wrong, because were worried

about what it says about us. But the only way to learn from failure is to admit it happened. I had to say, You were right. I was wrong. I had to ask for help. I didnt just ask for help from my parents (although they were a huge comfort and support). I also asked for help from a travel agent, and from my friend on Facebook, who ended up connecting me with family members in a small town called Cumbaya (no joke). His sister literally gave up her bed so I could stay at their house. I had to move positions. You cant make adjustments while standing still, which is hard. For me, its hard because the last thing I want to do after making a mistake is make another movement. What if I mess up again? I have to remind myself that the only way to move from a bad place to a good place is to move. If Im not willing to move, I wont ever be able to make the right adjustments.

Dont Be Insane
When I say dont be insane, what I dont mean is dont take risks. What I mean is dont take the same risks, over and over again, when they arent working. They say the definition of insanity is trying the same strategies over and over again, even when theyre not fixing the problem. If this is the case, Im completely insane, and I think most of us are. So often I try the same strategies to fix my relationship problems, my career problems, my communication problems, and my general life problems and I keep using them, even when they dont give me the results I want, or when theyre downright bad for me. The reason I do this, if you ask me, is simple: I dont know anything different. If thats the case, the only way to avoid insanity is to try new strategies, even when theyre unfamiliar, even if you arent sure theyll work. If you cant think of any new strategies, go seek some out. Ask someone else how they would handle a problem youve encountered. Or, go read a book. Then, just try stuff. If it works, great. Keep doing it. If it doesnt work how fascinating! time to move on and try something else. Never has this concept been more poignant to me than in marriage. Before I was married I thought I knew a lot about marriage. And I did. My dad is a clinical psychologist, and he works often with married couples. Hes done this my whole life, and since I was a voracious reader growing up, I used to raid his bookshelf, reading books about intimacy and marriage that were way outside the emotional reach of a twelve-year-

old. So by the time I was twenty-something, I knew more than the average person about marriage without having actually been married myself. That said, I went into my first year of marriage, at twenty-eight, with a list of ideas about what to do in this situation, or that one. I had a whole toolbox of strategies, and goals, and plans for how my marriage would be. The problem was, I realized a few months into marriage, my strategies werent working. Some of them were, but many of them werent. Marriage was not a formula, like I had hoped (just do this and that and everything will be okay) and my husband and I were not as predictable as the anecdotes from my books (as helpful as those books were). We were writing our own story of marriage and bringing our own needs, values and baggage to the table. When my goals and plans failed me, I had three choices: First, I could give up on the relationship. I could justify it, telling myself, Ive done everything I can, nothing I try is working, or this must not be the right direction. Second, I could keep trying the same strategies over and over again, assuming something was wrong with my husband, rather than with the strategies themselves (Ill be honest, I did this for awhile). Finally, I could try something new. This was the hardest of all three choices, because it meant entering unfamiliar territory, seeking advice, trying strategies I wasnt sure were going to work, and failing often (how fascinating). But ultimately Im learning how to make this choice daily in my marriage, and in the rest of my life too. Because when I live like this, my life, and my relationship with my husband, becomes more beautiful every day Im in it. When it comes to quitting your job to chase your dreams, whatever that looks like for you,dont be insane. Take risks, please. But dont take the same risks over and over again when they arent working. Be willing to be see your circumstances objectively, to see yourself objectively, and ultimately be willing to adjust your course.

Goal-Setting and Planning

Goal-setting and planning are good things, in all areas of life, but sometimes we get so fixated on our goals, or so disciplined with our strategies and plans that we arent able to see how our strategies are getting in our way. Has this ever happened to you? For me, New Years Resolutions are the epitome of this dilemma. In some ways, I love New Years resolutions. I love the feeling of being really disciplined and focused and going after something I want. In fact, Ive had great experiences with my resolutions over

the years. One year I decided to become a vegan, and while Im not a vegan anymore, I found the experience rewarding in many ways. Another year I vowed to train for a marathon, and completed the race in Portland in 2011. Still another year, I decided to write a book. That book releases in September of this year. I love that New Years resolutions have the power to propel us in a certain direction. But sometimes, resolutions actually get us off track, dont you think? Sometimes we think we want something, but when we start to chase it, we realize we actually want something different. Or sometimes we lose sight of what we want because it was too complicated, or too unrealistic. And when it comes to specific resolutions, they dont give us much room to adjust our course. This is why I love what my friend Alece is doing with OneWord365. Instead of New Years resolutions, she encourages people to choose one word they will focus on for the upcoming year. She asks, What do you want to focus on [this year]? Then she gives these instructions: It can be something tangible or intangible.It can be a thought, a feeling, an action, or a character trait. Your word will be a reminder, a nudge. Something you can reflect on, that will challenge you, that will inspire you. Your word can be anything you want it to be.All that matters is that it has personal meaning for you. (from OneWord365.com) Choosing a direction, or one word, rather than a specific resolution, helps us to focus on where were going and what were about, while also giving ample room to adjust when needed. When I think back to my journey of chasing my dream, there are some specifics that really mattered. It mattered that I wrote a book, for example. The journey wouldnt have been the same without that. But there are other specifics I wish I wouldnt have held to so tightly. I would have saved myself so much heartache if I had taken the time to look at myself and my life objectively, been open to trying new strategies, and ultimately been willing to adjust my course.

Chapter 7: Whats Getting in Your Way?

What do you want out of life? No, seriously. If you had all the money you needed, or all the time you could dream of, or all the support you ever imagined possible if I were to take the limitations away what would you do? Remember the story I told in the beginning of this e-book? It wasnt until I allowed myself to answer that question, in that way, that I was able to discover what I wanted to chase. Because it wasnt until that moment I knew I wanted something other than what I had. Something amazing happens when we discover what we want. The problem is, discovering what we want is only half of the equation. If we stop at this question, stop at what we want, and never talk about whats getting in our way, we run the risk of living in a fantasy land. Fantasy land is where fake people live who dont have to worry about practical things like resources, time and money. I dont know about you, but Ive never met a single real person in my life who didnt have to consider these limitations. So the next obvious question is a little less fun, and a little more practical, but equally as necessary. It goes like this: Whats getting in your way?

Make a List
The make a list strategy is one I learned from my friend Sharaya. Shes a musician, but also has a background in real estate and is one of the most insightful, inspiring and also intensely practical people Ive ever met. What a killer combination. Sharaya is always making lists. I remember when she first decided she wanted to quit her day job selling real estate to make her dream of becoming a musician a reality. She started making a list of all the things that would get in her way. She would need to start playing shows locally, and make time for writing her own songs, and start practicing covers so she would have enough to play longer sets at her bookings. She would need to find someone to record and produce a short album for her, and work on her stage presence, etc, etc, etc. To me, the list seemed sort of daunting. But do you know what she said about it? She said, Now, its just one step at a time. When I look at it like that, I get what she means. When we put our biggest fears down on actual paper, in the form of an actual list, they dont seem that daunting

anymore. Before they seemed like demons in the closet that might leap out at any minute. Now, once theyre on paper, they just seem like words strung together, so powerless they can be defeated by a horizontal swipe of my pencil. So often I overstate my obstacles and make them seem bigger then they actually are. Im not exactly sure why I do this, but I think it has to do with fear fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear that they might be too big for me to overcome. But something beautiful happens when I put all my obstacles in one place. They become just words on paper, just tiny little steps that, if I take them one at a time, arent so daunting after all.

Overcoming Challenges
If you ask me, we give challenges way too much credit. I do this all the time. I give up on friendships because of a disagreement, because Im not sure how to resolve it. I give up on dreams because they take money, and I dont have any. I walk away from people because I dont feel prepared to love or help them they way I know they deserve to be loved or helped. The hard truth about this is, the way I approach challenges and obstacles says a lot about my character, about who I am as a person. Remember the quote I shared from Michael E Gerber, at the beginning of this book? The work we do says something about the people we are. Think about what my approach to the above obstacles says about me: I choose comfort over relationships I choose money over dreams I choose my pride over loving others All it takes is seeing that list for me to realize: I dont want to be that kind of person! I want to be the kind of person who sees obstacles as opportunities, opportunities for God to show up, opportunities to enlist the help of others, and opportunities to learn and grow into the best version of me. The thing I tend to forget is that the human capacity for meeting challenge is remarkably powerful, especially when it comes to something that matters. Moms can lift cars off of children. People can climb mountains. Men and women can break the long-

standing record for the fastest ever recorded mile (which was always just over four minutes, until one man broke the invisible barrier, and repeats suddenly followed). Sometimes, obstacles are bigger in our heads than they are in the real world. But we wouldnt realize any of this until we got it down on paper.

The Biggest Obstacles We All Face

The biggest obstacles we all face in our chase, if you ask me, are intangible. They are selfishness, fear, pride and insecurity. If you feel scared, or wonder if you have what it takes; if you catch yourself feeling like your dream might be all about you, or that its selfish for you to pursue it, I have good news and bad news. The good news is, youre in good company. These obstacles are universal. The bad news is there is no way to overcome them without just getting started anyway. When we decide to become creators, to chase something, regardless of what it is (a family, a career, a project, an event, a marriage) the thing we create becomes a kind of mirror for who we are. After all, we put our hands to it. We took accountability for the artistic vision. And in that way, our kids, our novels, our paintings, our music, and our lifestyles all reflect a really distinct part of us. So when the project (the mirror) is finished, we stand back and oh my goodness we see ourselves. We see all our flaws, our selfishness, and our humanity. This is the danger of creating. In the past, my response to this has always been to avoid creating anything for myself. After all, the whole thing makes me feel a little bit selfish. I have to enlist the help of other people? I have to ask God for help? All for this project that only really matters to me? All this for a project that will ultimately reflect to the world how messed up I really am? I think Ill wait until I have a little more maturity, I tell myself. Or, I want to make sure my motives are pure before I start. To be fair, I think it is good to consider motives. Our motives are often unconsciously driving us, and if were not careful, they can steer us off course. But at the same time, if I wait to chase anything until I have totally pure motives, I wont chase much of anything in life. My motives are purified, and I am purified, as I go. Yes, you have some impure motives for your dream. Welcome to humanity. We all do. And yes, if you get started now, before you have all the skills and resources you could ever dream possible, you will inevitably encounter some failure. This might make you feel scared or insecure. But dont let it. Because when failure comes, youll pick yourself up,

dust yourself off, and say to yourself, how fascinating! Youll continue on your journey more humble, more skilled, and more secure than you were before. Do you see how these obstacles are overcome in the doing? Fear, insecurity, selfishness and pride can seem like daunting obstacles, but dont wait to chase your dream until you overcome them, or you never will. Just be willing to see yourself objectively, to stay in tune with your responsibility to your true self, to distinguish between fear and discernment, to see failure for what it is, and ultimately, to get started before youre ready. If you go through this process honestly and wholeheartedly if you give yourself to it completely and hold nothing back, it will be the most humbling, and also life-giving experience of your life. You wont have to focus on overcoming insecurity, or fear, necessarily, because that is a natural bi-product of the journey. You wont have to muster up care for others, because empathy comes in droves as you realize how difficult it is to chase anything worthwhile. And, at the end of all of the day, there is nothing more selfless any of us can do than to overcome these four obstacles, which stand in the way not only of our dreams, but also our ability to truly worship, and our relationships with others. This is the journey I believe we are called into when gifted life on this planet, the journey to discover our true selves, to come to peace with the gifts we have to offer, and to embrace life abundant.

Chapter 8: The Balance Between Trusting & Trying

Darrell and I were married in Portland, Oregon on December 31st, 2011. Then, nine days after our wedding, we moved from Portland to West Palm Beach, Florida to be a part of a ministry there. So, just before our wedding, Darrell traveled to Florida alone to look for a part-time job and a place for us to live when we arrived. He drove around all day, looking for acceptable, part-time employment, and for a place that would be safe and clean for his new wife (who is slightly more high-maintenance than he is) and also fall within our budget. After a full day of driving around, hed had no luck, and he called me, frustrated. I remember our conversation like it was yesterday. He said, I want to trust God is going to take care of us. After all, he has so many times before. But I also dont want to be lazy. I want to make sure Ive done everything I can to find what we need a job and an apartment. Whats the balance between trusting and trying? He asked. We talked for an hour, but didnt come up with an answer to his question, or a solution about what he should do about our current dilemma that we were getting married and moving, without long-term savings or place to live. Despite our best efforts to determine a solution to our problem, or our question, we hung up the phone without knowing what we were going to do next. It wasnt until later that evening he figured out the answer to his own question. He sent me this text: I figured it out, he said. There is no balance. You just trust. I love the faith of my husband. At the same time, if Im honest, the whole thing made me pretty nervous. Because when he said just trust it sounded a little like he was just planning to sit around in our friends basement until someone came knocking on the door, offering him an apartment or a job. I was pretty sure that wasnt going to work. But the more we talked about it, and the more we practiced walking out trust in our first year of marriage, the more I realized he never thought of trust this way. Trust isnt a passive stance, its an active one.

I thought trust meant I could just hang out in my living room trusting God would bring me a husband. I thought it meant that if I was trusting God for a new job, or new circumstances, those jobs or circumstances would come knocking on my door. In my mind, if I was trusting God, I was just sitting back waiting for good things to happen. Maybe that is why I was so resistant to trust. Because when I would wait and wait and wait for something good to come, and it never did, I had two choices. I could assume God wasnt good, or that he was good but he didnt love me.

Trust As Active
Trust is active, panic is passive. Theyre opposites, would you agree? Trust is something we choose, while panic chooses us. Ive dealt a fair amount with panic in my own life, and it always seems to me like the dog who attacks me the minute I walk in the front door of the house jumping and freaking out and trying to get me to freak out with him. I dont have to go and seek him out. He seeks me out. He jumps up on me and paws at me and wants to get me to play. He doesnt mean any harm, but if I want to create some distance between me and him, I must make the conscious, deliberate decision to back away. I speak in slow tones, I take deep breaths. Down, boy. Panic comes to us. In fact, panic attacks us (get it?). Trust, on the other hand, doesnt come to us at all. We have to go after it, to choose it, to seek it out the same way we go after a new apartment, or a part-time job, or an opportunity as doors seem to open (even the smallest crack) in front of us. Trust is about stepping out. If fear and panic tell us not to go to the interview because well never get the job, trust tells us its going to be okay. If fear and panic tell us quitting our job will make everything fall apart, trust tells us to learn from our failures, and it is all part of the journey. If panic tells us well never deserve the spouse we want, trust reminds us that we do in fact deserve good things, and that rejection does not define us. Its fitting, I think, that trust is an action, because in my experience, trust comes with doing. I want trust to come before I do things, but it rarely (maybe never) does. It always comes when I do what I said I would do, even when I dont feel like it. It comes when I take responsibility and accountability for what is mine. It comes when I tap into

all my strategies and resources, and am willing to work hard. Thats when I seem to gain understanding beyond my education, and when my resources seem multiply themselves. If were going to learn to lay down fear and find trust in our lives, were going to have to do something active. Were going to have to step out. So when it comes to letting go of the things that are getting in the way of where we want to go in life, whats the balance between trusting and trying? There is no balance. We just trust. We just do the only thing we know how to do to overcome those gigantic, pesky obstacles of insecurity, selfishness, fear and pride. We just step out.

Stepping Out
The obvious questions that come to mind for me as I write this are not much different than the question that came to me when I received my soon-to-be husbands text message that night, just weeks before our wedding. I thought to myself: How big of a step is too big? Is trusting responsible? (Are we just supposed to move to Florida with no jobs and no place to live?) What if I have a hard time with trusting? How can I build a bridge between trying (my default) and trusting? What if panic is jumping up all over me right now? How can I calm it? These moments, when I know I need something, and I dont have access to it, are the most nerve-wracking for me. In fact, theyre so nerve-wracking, I usually like to set my life up in a way (like I discussed in chapter five) that I dont ever have to encounter them. I like to have a good buffer in my bank account, and to start looking for a new job before I quit my old one. Because these precarious situations force me to admit I dont have control over everything, and thats touchy for me. Id much prefer to keep things neat and tidy where panic doesnt bother me as much. In fact, I dislike losing control so much that, when I do encounter a situation I dont have the resources to handle (much to my dismay) I tend to pretend like I do. I pull up my bootstraps, and white knuckle the steering wheel. I drive around town, busying myself with applications and walk-throughs and crunching the numbers on a calculator.

But most of the time, at the end of the day, Im exhausted, and Ive made no progress. This is active, but it is not trust. I can try and try, in my own strength, to make something happen, but this only makes my anxiety worse. Trusting takes a different kind of energy. It takes showing up, despite your moods or personal whims. It is not inventing opportunities out of nowhere, but being obedient to respond to them as they come across your path. Its waking up, silencing insecurity, and taking steps forward even when you dont know how it will turn out. It means adjusting expectations at times, when reality doesnt look like the dream from your head. It is moving forward in anticipation, without knowing exactly what lies ahead. For Darrell and me, this meant continuing with our plans to move to Florida, although we didnt have the part time jobs we hoped for. It also meant choosing an apartment that wasnt the picture of our ideal first home. It meant leaving behind even more things that we originally thought. It mean adjusting our expectations and attitudes to it the reality of our circumstance. Do you see how trust, in this case, was an active stance we took, although it involved very little actual work? Trust was about admitting we couldnt control everything, taking control of the areas we could, and moving forward despite uncertainty or fear. Trust was about allowing ourselves, and our situation, to unfold in front of us. Benjamin Zander, and his wife Roslyn, in their book The Art of Possibility, call it building the bridge while you walk on it, and I love that. I think it paints the perfect image for what it looks like to have faith, to practice trust. Kathleen Norris shares a similar sentiment in The Cloister Walk. She says: [We] are immersed in process, and I mean process not as an amorphous blur but as discipline. The hard work of writing has taught me that in matters of the heart, such as writing, or faith, there is no wrong way to do it, but only the way of your life. Just paying attention will teach you what bears fruit and what doesnt. But it will be necessary to revise to doodle, to scratch out, erase, even make a mess of things in order to make it come out right. Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk (emphasis mine)

Before we set out on our journey, we wont know for sure what is coming. We can only do the best we can, based on the information we have. But trust comes in doing. It comes as we learn to put down our anxieties and fears, calming them like the dog at the front door, getting down on his level, and petting his head until we realize he was just a puppy at heart, all along.

Chapter 9: You Cant Jump in Halfway

If we dont address issues of fear and trust before we make the jump, the results could be disastrous. You cant jump in halfway. A few summers ago, on my trip to South America, I had the opportunity to jump off of a waterfall. Actually, to be fair, I sort of orchestrated this opportunity. Im not sure where the idea initially came from, but I had wanted to do it for a long time, and by the time I arrived in the country, I was ready (or so I thought). I had this sort of resolve about it. Im not leaving until I do it. And one day, I had my chance. The waterfall was about 30 feet high (I think. Im terrible with measurements. In my mind is was just really high) and I watched several people take the plunge before I ventured to the edge myself. But despite the resolve I had experienced before I stood in that place, now, I wasnt sure. There I was, at the precipice of something I had wanted to do for so long, peering over the edge of a rock, looking at how the rush of water plummeted to the pool below, and all the hypothetical fear and anticipation I had imagined before that moment became real fear. Despite my reservations, I passed my camera to a generous onlooker, who agreed to take a video to document my feat. He stood back where he could get a full view, and I was left on that rock, to make my decision (jump, or dont jump) alone. I heard him call from his position on the other side of the river. Do it! Do it! Easy for you to say, I thought to myself. If you listen closely to that video you can hear me yell back: I dont want to die! I just dont want to die! But then, as you watch that video, you also see my body language change and, in a sort of silent resolution, I count to three, my feet leave the ground, and I fling myself off the edge. The video points toward the water below, and keeps running until you see my head pop above the surface. Im beaming, so proud of my accomplishment.

The Decision to Jump

One of the things that stands out to me about this moment in my life is the way I was so resolved to jump off the waterfall until I was actually standing there. Everything was hypothetical the fear, the danger, the possibility of failure until my feet were on that rock. Then, it was actual. And, in that way, the decision to take the leap didnt occur until that moment. It didnt take place in my mind, months before, as I dreamed about the idea of a waterfall. It happened right then, when I saw the literal thing in front of me, when I faced all the real possibilities of harm and jumped in anyway. This is where the rubber meets the road, and we put our money where our mouth is, and where a thousand other cliches explain a reality that is so familiar and universal, we cant help but communicate it in many different ways. Its easy to talk about doing something dangerous, but actually doing it? Well, thats a horse of a different color. There are two things I take away from this story. First, I must know the danger of my situation Second, I must make the choice to jump for myself

Knowing The Danger

Its so important to know the danger of the jump before you do it, and to make the decision by yourself. No one can push you off your waterfall, and you cant push anyone else. The results could be catastrophic. Can you imagine what would have happened if I would have let someone pressure me into jumping off the waterfall? Or what if someone would have pushed me? What if I had jumped halfway, leaving one foot on that protruding rock? I would have tumbled, hitting every other rock on my way down. I could have died. The chapters that have led up to this one the responsibilities, the fear, the possibility of failure might seem sort of unpleasant. In some ways, it would be easier to go without them, to live in denial, ignorant of realities like defeat and personal injury that lie all around us. It would be more pleasant to chase our dreams in LaLa Land. But it would also be even more dangerous. We must have practical conversations before we take the leap, and we must choose to engage all the risks at hand.

Taking The Leap

The decision to jump is yours, and no one elses. When you choose to make it, you must do so with both feet, at the same time. You cant skip through the important parts of this process knowing what you want, determining your responsibilities, listening to your discernment all the other things Ive discussed in this book. But if youve walked that road, and you find yourself at the tip of a rock, jetting out over a cascading waterfall, and you want to jump? Ill be the girl on the sidelines, with a camera, yelling, Do it! Do it! Because once youve decided youre ready to face this fear, ready to jump in with both feet, completely, Im convinced you will enjoy the ride. Im convinced it will be the most exhilarating, meaningful, life-giving thing youve ever experienced.

Chapter 10: The Chase Is The Reward

The biggest problem with the last few years of my life, since I quit my full-time job to go on the road trip and write a book, is I kept waiting for something big to happen. At first, it was about traffic on my website. I kept a blog while we traveled called Packing Light and the whole time we were on the road, I was waiting for the day I would write a post so witty, so brilliant, so utterly irresistible, it would go viral. A publisher would contact me. I would have a book deal immediately. My career would be kickstarted. Needless to say, that post, that moment, never happened. After we returned from the trip, my obsession was with getting a book deal. It would happen serendipitously, I decided. I would bump into a publisher at the grocery store, as we were both reaching for the same box of cereal, or someone would sit next to me on the city bus whos third cousin happened to be dating a girl who happened to have a friend who worked for a publisher, and she would hear about my idea for my book, and be so excited she couldnt wait to talk to me about it. We would meet, and she would say, how have I not heard your story before? In retrospect, Im a little embarrassed to admit I felt this way. It all seems pretty unrealistic and self-centered. But at the same time, these ideas were close enough to reality that I think they represent something important, if Im willing to look at them in a healthy manner. While big moments rarely come out of nowhere and fulfill our dreams in an instant and while I have to admit that even if it did happen this way, the buzz would probably wear off pretty fast our experiences can often be like arrows, pointing us in the right direction. For example, we met a stranger in one city on our big road trip, who happened to have a brother in another state who happened to be married to a woman who booked shows at a local coffee shop. They booked a show for us, and we made decent money, and were able to see a city I will never forget. In Michigan we happened to stay with a friend of a friend who happened to work in publishing, and was able to answer many of the questions I had, and help me work on my book proposal. On the streets of Saratoga, a man heard our story and handed me a $100 bill saying only, write that book of yours. These moments the ones that kept us alive and moving from day to day feel a little like big moments at times, but they also tend to come between days of monotony, and weeks of hard, frustrating, back-breaking work. In fact, as I was telling the story recently, someone reminded me, Those moments couldnt have happened if you werent

on a 50-state road trip! And I thought, oh yeah, chasing our dreams is this delicious combination of taking steps out, working as hard as we can, and receiving the un-coerced gifts of favor that happen to occur along our path. Looking back now, I realize how passive it was for me to think that some big moment was going to fall into my lap and determine the rest of my career. Life is full of serendipity, and sometimes it aids us along the way, but for the most part, chasing what we want is more active than waiting for some big opportunity to change our whole life. I love the way Thomas Edison puts it: We often miss opportunity because its dressed in overalls and looks like work. Thomas Edison

The Work
The thing that most often keeps me from doing the work it takes to get what Im chasing is fear. The fear of work is a little different than the fear of failure, rejection and making the wrong decision, although they are related. The fear of work, for me at least, is a fear that none of it will matter. Im terrified I will wake up early, go to bed late, break my back, make every sacrifice, and at the end of the day, I wont have made a difference. No one will care. We all want to matter. Every single one of us. We want to matter beyond ourselves, and outside of ourselves, and keep mattering after were gone. We want to leave a legacy, and one of my biggest fears in life is that I wont be able to do that, that Ill just fade away into dust and disappear. I think its a natural, human, healthy need to matter. But I have two thoughts about our fear of work. First, Im learning that when we act out of fear (of any kind) we give our fears permission to come true. This is true in many areas of life. Think about a first date. The week before the date arrives, youre terrified of what you are going to look like on the night itself, so you spend the whole week worrying, which pumps stress hormones like Cortisol into your bloodstream, which, among other symptoms, makes you break out. Then, during the date itself, youre so worried about saying something stupid, your brain becomes this jumbled mush, and you cant think about what to say, or what to ask. You end up using some anecdote about how people dont wash their hands after using the bathroom and before grabbing the mints at the front of the restaurant.

Not always, but so often, our fears are self-fulfilling. Our fear of not mattering is no different. If we fear work because were scared it wont make us matter, we actually end up avoiding the work it takes to become the kind of person we wanted to be all along the kind of person who leaves a legacy that lasts beyond his or her life. This kind of legacy takes a great deal of work. It takes caring for children, and loving a spouse, even when it isnt convenient. It means doing the right thing even when it doesnt get the outcome you hoped for. It takes a resolve, or as author and radio show host Dave Ramsey puts it, a gazelle-like intensity. This is the only way to live a life that matters. The second thing Im learning is that our fear of work says something about our misunderstanding of work, and about outcomes. I think about how scared I was to go on my road trip. I was scared our car would break down, scared we wouldnt have enough money to get home, and scared I would never get married (yes, really). I was scared because, even if I laid everything on the line, I realized there was no guarantee I would be able to get what I thought I wanted the chance to write and publish my book. I wonder if you have felt like this, if youve thought to yourself, if I could be sure I would get [fill-in-the-blank], I would give up everything! I wonder if our focus on outcomes is getting us off track. So often we assume a certain outcome is the reward for our back-breaking work. We figure if we just follow all the instructions, put in the time, say the right things, go the right places, and talk to the right people, well get the spouse, the job, the marriage, the children, the business weve always wanted. After all, this is the reward for our diligence, right? So what happens when we dont get the outcome we hoped for? We assume it is a punishment. At least I do. Where did I go wrong? I lament, frustrated with God for a punishment I cant understand. But what if I have the equation wrong? What if the outcome isnt the reward, after all? What if the reward is the journey itself ? What if the reward isnt the objective I accomplish, but the person I become in the process? When I choose to believe this is true, it changes everything. The work is always worth it, no matter the outcome. The work is the reward. I am the reward. I can stop striving for my reward. I already have it.

The Reward
Before Darrell and I moved to Florida, we worked hard on an eBook based on a series from the blog I was keeping at the time. The series was called Why Are Christians Waiting for Marriage for Sex? and we decided to call the book Asking All the Wrong Questions. We knew that single, Christian 20-somethings were asking hundreds of questions about sex (we were asking them too) and as we navigated the choppy waters of dating and engagement, we also started to realize how the questions we were asking were pointing us in the wrong direction. Based on the popularity of the blog series, we were pretty excited about the possibility of the eBook. We had never worked on a project like this before, but Darrell had some design skills, and I had some writing skills, and we had friends who agreed to help promote it, so we worked furiously, for weeks, thinking to ourselves this is it. This is going to be what funds our move to Florida. We figured, based on our calculations, that if we sold the e-book for $2.99/each, we might be able to avoid getting part time jobs after all. This was our chance to do what we loved! When all the work was finished, we confidently (albeit naively) presented the project the world, so proud of what we had done. The marketing plan was in place, the book was on Amazon, and we bribed basically everyone we knew to tweet about it. Everything was going as planned. Except one thing. The thousands we figured would be itching to buy our product turned to hundreds, then quickly to tens, until a week later, basically no one cared. I can tell you a dozen places where I think we went wrong. I think we shipped the project too quickly, and there was too much repetition from what was already on the blog. I dont think the writing was my best work (probably because we shipped it too quickly) and we didnt take enough care in choosing photos and creating the interior design. If we were to do the project over again today, we would do basically the whole thing different. Live and learn, right? Yes, and part of living and learning means you have to face the real consequences of your real decision, and your real blind spots, even when it doesnt seem fair. When Darrell and I arrived in Florida, we had to get part-time jobs, much to our dismay me at Starbucks, Darrell at a high-end hardware store. Neither of us loved getting up to go to work each morning, but we made the best of it (most days) and worked hard, believing

with all of our hearts we were sewing into the next season, where we would work for ourselves. I did my fair share of complaining, thats for sure. Im almost 30, Im working at Starbucks, and I have a Masters degree! I would say, in frustration. But the more I said those words out loud, the more I realized how selfish the whole thing seemed. My season of working at Starbucks reminded me that I have something to learn for everyone, that I was not too good to make lattes, and it reminded me that I have my reward. The lessons I learned in that season at Starbucks will stay with me forever. They are part of who I am becoming. No matter where you are on your journey, dont be afraid to do the hardest work of all, which is showing up everyday with humility and a good attitude. And on days when a good attitude feels impossible, dont be afraid to admit youre wrong, and ask for help. This is it. This is what you want, most of all. This is your big, exciting life. And you have your reward.

Stay On Course
So, what does it mean to stay on course? Well, I can tell you what it doesnt mean. It doesnt mean you shouldnt take a part-time job working at Starbucks to help pay your bills. It doesnt mean you should never settle for a job you dont wholeheartedly enjoy, for a time, to accomplish a specific objective, meet a need, or learn a skill. It doesnt mean you should quit your responsibilities and do whatever you feel like doing. In fact, just the opposite. Stay on course. This is what Im telling myself, even as I sit here writing this ebook. Its morning, on a Friday in fact, and I have a million things on my mind. My email is beeping and my phone is buzzing, but I have work to do. Stay on course, I tell myself. I know what I need to do. I need to keep writing. In an hour, though, when my writing time for the day is done, Ill be doing something different. Ill be working on another project, one that I dont enjoy nearly as much as this one, but that is part of my job, part of my day. I schedule out my hours like this on purpose, so I know exactly what I need to be doing, and exactly when I need to be doing it. Stay on course is a personal reminder to avoid distractions, tune out the noise I talked about in chapter five, and live with integrity, the kind of integrity you want in the

foundations of the building. You want the support beams, the raw materials, and all the designs of the building itself to have integrity, so the building doesnt sway or bend. You want the building to stay standing, even in an earthquake, a tornado, or a hurricane. This is integrity staying in position, even when conflict, hardship or criticism makes you want to sway. You might feel like bending to meet the demands of others, or to fit in with those around you. But swaying from your integrity wont ever be worth the temporary relief from the storm. It wont be worth watching your building come crashing down. Im not sure where you are in your journey, but it doesnt matter. If already stepped out, like I have, already quit your job, or quit something else that was getting in the way of chasing what you really wanted, or if you havent; If you find yourself standing out there on the ledge, deciding if you should jump or if you shouldnt,this is my mantra for me, and for you: Stay on course. Something really great happens when we stay on course, keep putting one foot in front of the other. Each day may seems sort of mundane, sort of a mindless crawl up a mountain. After awhile we start to feel tired.What are we doing this for anyway? Is it even worth it? Will we ever reach the top? But then, we come to a clearing, and we look back and see how far weve come, and we whisper to ourselves again: Stay on course. And out here in the open air, away from the noises and distractions and beeping and buzzing of our phones and electronic devices out here in the quiet of the woods, we are at peace with our Creator. And we find the life weve been longing for. We find we already have our reward, that this journey is what we needed all along.