Here's A Story I Haven't Shared

I want to share a story with you.

I was ten months away from college graduation and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. One day a professor of mine said, “Chris, you should consider graduate school because you’re a good writer.”

I felt flattered and my mental wheels started turning. No one in my family had gone to grad school before. I also had never lived in another state other than Oklahoma. Grad school could be a way to do both of those things.

I started looking into grad school.

After some research, I chose to apply to one school. A few months later, I got an email sharing with me that I had been accepted AND that the school was offering me a full-ride! I was ECSTATIC. I moved to North Carolina and I started the grad school program.

A year passes, and then I find myself 10 months away from graduating and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.

But there was a major difference compared to earlier, and that was love. I was falling in love with a woman that I had met in grad school. So, despite not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, I graduated, took a job down the street from the university, and started dating Annie.

I wasn’t crazy about my job. It paid me $16/hr (nothing wrong with that, but I had 💰 on the brain) and I was on the phone all day. I remember my boss telling me to ask for permission before I went the restroom so that she could handle the call queue better. It was not my speed.

But, it was right by Annie.

After dating for a year, I decided I wanted to marry Annie. I proposed to her on the courtyard of the university. She said yes and became my fiancé.

Around this same time, Annie got a great PhD offer to the University of Kansas. It was perfect for her! She knew the people, had lived in the city before, and it was her line of research. As soon she accepted the offer, I made the decision in my head that I was going with her.

I was going to move to Kansas, and I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life (other than be a stellar husband to Annie).

I could continue the story if you’d like, but I’m going to stop here to make a point: Oftentimes we can’t determine how our life-story is being written, but we can determine how we tell it.

There have been many moments of my life where I had no idea what I wanted to do or what my next step was. But, my story kept going!

People LOVE to hear stories because they’re relatable, easy to comprehend, and transformative. They open a portal for us to take part in another storyline, a new perspective that has new things to see and hear.