Do Weird Things
I have jury duty this week. I got selected, even though the prosecuting attorney grilled me in front of the judge during voir dire about what I did for a living.
I had to muster an answer despite the thoughts swirling in my head:
Which LLC do I mention?
The one that’s yielding the most?
Or the one I’m proudest to own?
What about the non-profit I started 26 years ago?
There was no easy answer, so I looked dodgy, and the attorney scoffed like he had caught me in a lie, and yet they somehow still picked me.
Why can’t I work a job like a normal person?
A fellow parent recently asked me if my kids were athletic.
I hemmed and hawed because, no, they don’t play soccer or basketball, but we’re leaving on Friday for Anderson, South Carolina to battle the Sea Lords in the fictional land of Olaran in a Medieval live-action role-playing game.
Holding the line in a shield wall against a barbarian horde counts as athletic, right?
Why can’t we just play little league?
I’ve been reading the classics in my spare time. Little Women. The Call of the Wild. Treasure Island. Around the World in Eighty Days. And I can’t get enough of them.
I’m literally crying at the end of Black Beauty.
And I’m wondering how I can get kids to fall in love with these books again. To stop scrolling TikTok, thinking captions count as reading.
So I think about conferences. Hmm, no.
I wonder about storytelling festivals. Not yet.
Film adaptations? Too risky to start there.
An app? Zzzzzzzzz.
Then I imagine taking buses full of families to the places where these stories actually occurred. The docks of Bristol where Long John Silver boarded the Hispaniola... the North End of Boston where Paul Revere launched his midnight ride… and the Minnesota prairie where the Ingalls family established a homestead.
And I start making phone calls and putting together the first itinerary, and I call it Story Chasers, and I’m going to launch it this December and do exactly that.
Will it work? I have absolutely no idea.
Why can’t I just read a John Grisham novel like a normal person?
I have two sons in college. One in Asheville. One in Nashville. (I love saying that.)
And I tell them all the time in voice memos:
Your grades DON’T MATTER.
Befriend as many people as you can.
Talk to your professors like they’re human.
Start bonfires and gather your friends to share stories.
Take risks.
Join a band.
Start a student organization.
Lead a Bible study.
Pray out loud in groups.
Pull off public practical jokes.
Intern somewhere.
Dress like you don’t care.
Sit with a nerd at lunch.
Get rejected by a girl.
But for the love of God, DON’T DO WHAT EVERYBODY ELSE DOES!
If they do this, I think they’ll be okay.
Do you want to know if I’m okay?
My life will be full of weird things.
I’ll actually make time for friendships.
My Instagram just might stay deleted.
I’ll go to movies by myself.
I’ll keep creating LLCs for things I love.
I’ll order the parts to a flintlock musket and attempt to put it together.
I’ll try things I think I suck at.
I’ll call long-lost people, just because.
I’ll become an expert in something totally useless.
I’ll find another way to do that thing I’ve failed at a thousand times.
And if I’m doing it right, it won’t be what everybody else does.