 It was about eight years ago when the alarm woke me up at three in the morning, except it wasn't an alarm, it was a newborn baby, and I couldn't calm him down. I remember turning to the computer and realizing that I still needed to finish an assignment for my master's class, and I thought to myself, life will be better when this phase is over, when we have more money, when the kids are older, when I have a master's degree, but as my son calmed down and fell asleep on my chest, I realized something. Life wouldn't get any better, life couldn't get any better, easier perhaps, more orderly maybe, but not better, because nothing could be better than this. I had everything I could possibly need in the world. I've been thinking a lot about that moment, and the lie that sneaks into my life, the one that starts with life will be better when blank. I think it comes from the mistaken notion that a better life is the one with more comfort. It's the idea that life is meant to be a vacation, and that if I just do all the right things now, I can relax later. See, it works something like this, when you're in high school you can't wait to get into college, and then you can't wait to get married or start a career, and then you can't wait to have money or a house, and then you have kids and you can't wait for the kids to get older, and then you can't wait to retire, and then at some point you grow older, and you can't wait at all. You've run out of waiting. But what if that's not how life is supposed to work? What if life is meant to be a story? And not just any story, it's meant to be an epic story. The good life is one with real conflict that requires courage. It's meant to have characters that you love and couldn't imagine losing. It's meant to be grounded in a setting where you feel the grass beneath your feet, and you know that you have a place where you belong. It's meant to be lived with bold themes. The beauty of epic stories is that they aren't comfortable. They aren't easy. They are forever riddled with conflict and with imperfect characters, but they are also filled with everything that makes life worth living. Passion, love, courage, purpose, people. Don't get me wrong, vacations are fun. There's nothing wrong with a break, but life isn't found there. Life is meant to be epic.