Does anybody feel like you aren’t telling a good story because of your job? Do you have a job that you don’t like or isn’t fulfilling?  Brad and I were discussing this at lunch today when I was semi-lamenting the fact that I’m about to start a job where I’ll be working 10-12 hours a day.  When he asked, “Do you really want to do this?” instead of getting sad and crying in public (like I did during Les Miserables), I thought about this passage from Storyline that we will be covering next Sunday:

For some, our careers are a large part of our stories, but others of us aren’t emotionally connected to our jobs.  If that’s the case, we should do anything we can to switch careers.  However, if that’s not possible, don’t sweat it.  From here on we can think of our jobs as fundraising.

I have a friend who is a lawyer.  He sues large construction companies that make crooked sky-scrapers.  It’s not a save many lives kind of job, so he just thinks of his job as a way to get cash to fund his story.

That said, even in his job he’s living a great story.  He takes on clients for free that can’t afford him and even started his own law school to help one kid pass the bar. No kidding.  He has his own law school comprised of one student.  He found a loophole in some paperwork that allowed him to start a single-student law school.   They have sweatshirts and everything.

Don’t feel bad about viewing your job as fundraising.  Anybody who writes a screenplay has to hit the pavement, hat in hand asking people to invest in their story. It’s the same with life.  If your job isn’t directly connected to saving many lives, consider it fundraising.

Our careers are not our stories.  Our stories come from the core of who we are and we are bigger than our jobs.  If you are what you do for a living, you are smaller than your potential.

So I’ll be fundraising in my new job.  With that perspective, I feel a lot better about my story.  After all, I can’t remember any New Testament passage where Jesus complained about being a carpenter.  And I think he lived a pretty good story.