Half Hearted

Recently, I printed a couple hundred photos at Wal Mart on a new automatic machine they have. I was excited because I needed to get these done quickly, and the quality was supposed to be amazing. Unfortunately, all but about four of the photos came out messed up. I brought the pile to the young man working the desk and said I am really sorry but I can not take these. He quickly came back with the following statement “no biggy, it is Wal-Mart’s money anyway”. Wow – that is truly a sad statement and it really made me wonder how many people live in this half hearted manner.

I have talked with many people who say they are in jobs that, if they could talk honestly, they would just say “I really just don’t care”, “I am totally burned out” and “I just feel trapped.” It is as if life has zoomed by, leaving any expectations or dreams once held left in the dust, and a sense of entrapment without a clear path out. To some extent, I think we all fight these feelings of disillusionment and it makes me really want to challenge myself to do something about it.

I am very blessed to be in a business that I am passionate about (even with its challenges and downsides), but overall I love new technology, creating new designs for customers and helping them communicate and connect with their customers. However, over the last few years something has been missing, and part of that has been pursuing art/design not based on a timeline and a budget, but just for the pure love of creating. Don’t get me wrong, I love creating new designs for customers, but each of these are based on a set variables and I really felt like I needed to allow some time to just do art for pure fun. Well, it is easy to just talk about it, and I am one of the worst at dreaming out loud without ever following through, but a couple weeks ago I set aside a couple days to illustrate a picture. I made myself a couple of rules – it had to be completed within two days, and I had to enjoy the process. I loved it. Now the final product is no Picasso, but my goal was not to create a photo-realistic piece of art, but to just enjoy the time and to create for fun instead of money (click here for large view of art). Well, I totally enjoyed it and am looking forward to setting some more time apart to pursue my art. In fact, I got so fired up about it that for Fathers Day, I ordered an amazing new Wacom drawing tablet that I have dreamed about for years – check out the video by clicking here.

The amazing thing I found from just this one step back into my art is that I was more excited about my commercial art as well. From this, I realized that all of us need to pursue our dreams so that our hearts are full enough to succeed at whatever our paying career might be… and if you are truly lucky, they blend together.

I just wanted to encourage everyone to not lose sight of your dreams and goals, and to set a little time apart each week to use the God-given talents and passions that you have been blessed with.

Cheers,

Joe Law