Sometimes I wish I could live a million lives.
I feel this way mainly because I want to do things that matter, and anything can matter if you do it for the right reasons. Unfortunately there just aren't enough years in a lifetime to do all the things I want to do with my life. I want fifteen different careers all at once. I want to live twenty years in a different state/country each. I want to play pro football and hit cleanup for the Minnesota Twins. I want to take pictures of snow leopards and do a double backflip at the X-Games. I want to do too many things.
Just to give you a little idea of what I'm talking about, I took a little time and typed out only but a few of the things I wish I could do while on the earth.
1. I want to be a filmmaker. Obviously. This one is a no-brainer. I want to make movies and live next to palm trees.
2. I want to live in a van. So what if I want to travel around country in a VW van and take showers at truck stops. I'd spend a month or so each in a state, earning money anyway I could and meeting new people (hopefully they'll follow me on instagram) and then move on. Maybe eventually I'd settle in a cardboard box with a nice woman somewhere, or maybe I'd drive my mobile home off into the sunset.
3. I want to be a sportscaster. I want to talk sports for hours and hours on ESPN. Specifically about baseball and perhaps take over their power rankings so there could be one that didn't make me want to punch them in the face. I would get scoops sooner than Adam Schefter.
4. I want to be a cartoonist. Whether that be for something web based or a newspaper funnies section. I'd tell stories about an orange cat that liked spaghetti... no, lasagna. Yeah, lasagna. Idk, I'm still working on that one.
5. I want to launch and run a non-profit. One that helps people who can't help themselves or are overlooked in someway. Build houses with 156 year old Jimmy Carter. Something like that.
6. I want to be an author. I want to write books, both fiction and nonfiction. I'll see my work at bookstores and go on Oprah and jump on her couch about how excited I am about my new book, "Girl, Stop That Heresy" or something. It'll be awesome.
7. I want to be a professional baseball player. Look, it's probably a little late now, unless I pull a Dennis Quaid. But you can do anything you put your mind to. I just want to be on a baseball card. Speaking of which...
8. I want to collect and sell baseball cards for a living. I already do this as a hobby. But if you could invest in certain cards and/or travel around with those cards getting signatures from certain stars, all the while stockpiling your collection of older signed memorabilia... boom... rent paid for.
9. I want to open my own coffee shop. I don't know what it would be called. But I do know that it would cater to the people right in between the PSL crowd and the pour over crowd. We'll tell you where the roast is from but we'll also let you put as many pumps of vanilla in your drink as you want. However, there won't be a blender anywhere in the building. If you want a blended drink go to Dairy Queen you uncultured swine (I'm totally kidding that's a Toy Story quote don't be offended, but seriously, if you order a blended drink I'll slash your tires).
10. I want to be a pastor. I like the Bible and I like talking in front of people. Plus it sort of runs in the family. I would plant a church in Uganda or my living room or the play room of a McDonalds. Not sure yet.
11. I would start a band. I've always wanted to do this. I even forced my sister to join a band with me using the guitar I didn't actually know how to play and the piano at the church. It did not go well.
12. I want to be a painter. A sculptor. Anything like that. Someone who has their work hanging in hotel lobbies or people's homes. I'll paint a bunch of dogs playing poker. That would be hilarious.
This is just a small portion of the things I wish I could do with my life. At least three times a day I will drive by something or see something online that makes me wish I could have that job. I make a mental note of it and then think about it the rest of the day. By the end of the day I'll have an entire life plan of how I could achieve that goal of doing that thing and how I'll make the time and where I'll make the money. Then I wake up in the morning and realize how crazy it is. Then I'll do it all over again later that same day.
Anyone of these that I've mentioned could, at a certain level, fill up a whole life's worth of time. But what about filling up the life you already have?
After thinking about this subject for a long time. I started to realize something. That if I did get a million lives; with each new life, it gets less and less special. The more you have of something, the less important it becomes. The less unique it becomes.
What makes this life so beautiful is the fact that you only have one of them.
And what's even better is that every good and perfect thing comes from above. God isn't going to give you a talent that won't be able to be used by Him and for Him at some point in your life. Your goal should be to find that purpose.
You have a purpose set by God, other desires may come and go, but His plan remains.
Think of Jesus in John 12:27. He thinks about this out loud and then remembers why he's there in the first place.
“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour."
He knows His purpose and knows why He's there.
We always think we know what's best for our life and how we should live it, but that's almost never the case. God even says in Isaiah, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways."
Plus it turns out that God is a pretty good planner. He won't be surprised by an ability or desire that crops up at some point in your life. For example, many of my above examples are able to be used in some way in my calling, which I believe to be filmmaking. Writing screenplays is the cousin to writing books. Drawing storyboards is one of my parts of the filmmaking process and a direct link to being a cartoonist. Being interested in music translates well to the editing of a film. Plus who says a director can't live in a van? And making movies doesn't stop me from doing a couple of those things on the side such as opening a coffee shop or launching a non-profit, in fact it would probably give those things a boost.
Do anything and everything to the glory of God.
"Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." John 13:17
God has his reasons for the things he puts in our hearts we may not understand right away, and may never this side of heaven, but we just need to trust that God knows better.
I may wish that I could live a million lives, but the one life God has given me has them all beat.