to accept challenges in order to transform into the person capable of getting what they want.

Meaning is the same. You accept your own agency. You move your locus of control from outside yourself to inside yourself. You go on intentional adventures, and you get to experience meaning. You have a goal, you overcome challenges, you put another page in the typewriter. You wake up each day and you push the plot forward. The more I lived intentio

The journey, of course, changes them. Still, the hero must participate. They must decide to take the journey. Bilbo leaves the Shire. Ulysses sets sail. Romeo scales the wall into Juliet’s courtyard. At some point in a story, the characters divide, and it becomes obvious who will be the victim, who will be the hero, who will be the villain, and who

John Steinbeck’s Journal of a Novel taught me the discipline and joy of writing. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway taught me how to pace a book. Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood taught me to make the writing visual. Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies taught

We distract ourselves with pleasure when we can’t find a sense of meaning.

The idea that fate writes our story is a lie. We do not suffer fate. We partner with fate to write a story generated from our own God-given creativity and agency. And that story can be more

Take action creating a work or performing a deed.

What separates a villain from a hero is the hero learns from their pain and tries to help others avoid the same pain. The villain, on the other hand, seeks vengeance against the world that hurt them.

Viktor Frankl did not see himself as a victim, I had no excuse. None of us do. We can each reframe our story and structure our lives in such a way that we experience a deep and fulfilling sense of meaning.