A few weeks ago, I wrote about a recurring theme in the Jack Reacher novels.

The villains are constantly assigning meaning to things that don't actually mean anything. Reacher walks into a diner, asks an innocent question, and suddenly they're convinced he knows everything. They react to a story they've created in their own minds instead of the reality in front of them.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how often we all do that. We take a tiny piece of information and build an entire narrative around it.

As it turns out, I've been doing it since I was a kid. 

Recently, I was telling my wife a story from when I was in junior high, and she thought it was one of the funniest things she'd ever heard.

When I was in junior high band, free days always meant the same thing.

The band director would wheel in one of those giant TV carts, pop in a VHS tape, and we'd watch Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

Well... we'd start watching it.

Class wasn't long enough to finish the movie, and for some inexplicable reason we never picked up where we left off the next time. We'd just start over from the beginning.

This happened over and over for three years.

By the time I left junior high, I'd probably seen the first hour of Willy Wonka six or seven times.

I'd watched Augustus Gloop disappear into the chocolate river.

I'd seen Violet Beauregarde turn into a blueberry.

I'd watched Veruca Salt vanish down the garbage chute.

And every single time, the bell would ring before I found out what happened next.

So I reached what I thought was the only logical conclusion. 

The kids all died.

Honestly, I couldn't understand why people remembered it as this beloved children's movie. From my perspective, it was about a mysterious candy maker who invited children into his factory and eliminated them one by one like an Agatha Christie novel. 

It wasn't until I was probably twenty-five years old that I finally watched the entire movie.

Imagine my surprise when every one of them walks out alive.

For more than a decade, I was absolutely convinced I knew how a story ended because I'd never actually seen the ending.

Looking back, it's hilarious.

It's also a pretty good reminder of how easily we confuse incomplete information with complete understanding.

The truth is, we don't just do this with movies.

We do it with our lives.

A rough season in marriage becomes evidence that we'll never be as happy as we once were.

A disappointing performance at work becomes proof that we've reached our ceiling.

One difficult year with our kids convinces us we're failing as parents.

A health setback convinces us we've missed our chance.

We experience one chapter and quietly assume we already know how the book ends.

We confuse "this is happening" with "this is how it will always be." 

The funny thing is, if you'd asked thirteen-year-old me whether those kids survived, I wouldn't have said, "I’m not sure."

I'd have said, "Of course not!"

I wasn't uncertain.

I was confidently wrong.

I wonder how many of the stories we tell ourselves work the same way.

How many times have we mistaken our current circumstances for our permanent reality?

How many times have we confused the middle of the story with the ending?

One of the hardest things about being human is tolerating unfinished stories.

We want answers now.

We want certainty now.

We want to know where this job is headed, whether our kids are going to be okay, whether this difficult season in our marriage will pass, whether the effort we're putting in today will eventually matter.

But life doesn't usually work that way.

Most of the time, we don't get the ending until we've lived through it.

Maybe that's why patience is so difficult.

Patience isn't just waiting.

It's resisting the urge to force an ending, even a bad one, just so we feel more comfortable.

These days, whenever I'm tempted to think I know exactly where a situation is headed, I think back to that old TV cart in the band hall.

I remember believing, with complete confidence, that Willy Wonka was one of the darkest children's movies ever made.

Turns out, I just hadn't seen the ending.

Maybe you're only halfway through your story, too.

Until next time—
keep the fires burning.
– Clay

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