I am frustrated. My computers are running slowly this morning at I have lots to do. While they are crucial to my work, the computers that I have are pretty old. I’ve managed to keep them running well past their expected lifespan.

One of the things on my todo list, actually for yesterday, but it got bumped to this morning, and I really need to get it done, is this blog post about story.lab. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been heading down to The Grove to join in a discussion about living the mission of our lives as stories. What are those stories? What is the object of desire in the story? What is the controlling idea? What is the over arching value of my controlling idea? The cause for my overarching idea? How must my character transform if I am able to live my story?

In other discussions, there have been questions about what prevents us from living our stories? What are the antagonists? For home work, we are supposed to think through some of these questions and be prepared to share them. So, here is my first take.

The controlling idea is about engagement. With that, I guess the object of desire is for people to become more engaged in their communities. This is an open ended object of desire. Ideally, it is obtained every day and at the same time becomes the new object of desire. No matter how involved people come, there is always that desire to become more involved.

As people become more involved in their communities, their lives and the lives of their communities become transformed. With that, I need to constantly be finding new ways of helping people become more involved in their communities as I need to constantly better understand and become more involved in the communities I’m part of.

Yet this comes to the antagonists. It is easy to become burnt out. When there is a setback, it is easy to become disillusioned. Through all of this, there is a struggle to make a living, to help get bread on the table. Unfortunately, promoting community involvement often doesn’t pay all that well. It means juggling resources and keeping old computers running and the frustration that comes with it. It means juggling time commitments.

With that, this blog post is written quickly and not edited. I need to juggle some of my time commitments. So, what is the story line for the mission of your life?