Laugh a bit louder
Smile a bit more
Work a lil harder
Be curiouser and curiouser
Think outside the box
Be confident
Listen a bit closer
Always say please and thank you
Stand a bit taller
Pay attention
Complain less
Dance a bit crazier
Give 110% to everything
Stop over thinking and just do
Have a little more faith
Take a few more risks
Focus on the positive
Run longer
Be happy with what I have
Love more
Never give up
I have started to suck at this blogging thing. I'm not quite sure what's been distracting me. Possibly it's that I've started reading books again. My TV hasn't even been on for more than a couple hours in the last week and a half. Usually its there for random noise. Maybe it's that I've picked up running every day as a new hobby. Or it could be after spending 8 hours sitting front of a computer a day, my brain just can't handle it after hours anymore.
Meh, whatever the reason, my apologies. Hopefully I can get my act together.
This week is a Doomtree week. During my run yesterday I had The Grand Experiment on repeat and got struck with a bit of inspiration.
"I don’t mind putting on a bit of mileage, but I won’t auto pilot with my
eyelids shut. I’m still gunning, but I learned what’s worth hunting. And I learned what’s worth nothing"
Last week Dessa of Doomtree gave a presentation at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum in MPLS. I listened to it last night and just had to share it. She is a very inspiring and driven person. Her presentation was on the rap and hip-hop community and it's social/moral issues of oppressing groups of people with the language and lyrics. It made me want to go through my iTunes and delete all the mainstream trash in it no matter how catchy it may be.
The biggest thing that hit home to me was the portion about where you come from affecting where you end up in life. Dessa talked about these artists making it sound like just because you come from 'the hood' or whatever that means your life is going to end up a certain way and you're going to act a certain way. The stereotypes of growing up in a certain neighborhood. When in fact, there are plenty of people who are growing up in unfortunate situations who are turning their life around and making something positive of themselves.
Why is it okay for songs to degrade and humiliate people with horrible language and words? Why do we listen and endorse it?
"If the choices are: feel discomfort for sharing
well-considered, fundamentally held moral views, or feel discomfort for
NOT having shared well-considered, fundamentally held moral views, than I
choose the former discomfort."
Props to you, Dessa, for speaking your mind and being an inspiring person.
P.S. If you look back at any old posts and see a doubled signature, just ignore it. I figured out how to have it automatically put in and didn't want to go through over 300+ posts to take out the original...
Yesterday I got together with a group of college friends. A couple of them I hadn't seen in probably a year. It was great to hang out with them again. It was just the spontaneous weekend my brain needed to re-energize, refresh, and re-focus.
My friend Nick took me to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis yesterday. Even though I'm from MN, I hadn't ever been there before. It was great to get outside (even though it was quite chilly), take a look at some local art, and snap a couple of photos. I can't wait to go back in the spring/summer when I won't freeze.
This morning before I headed back to Hutch, Marlon and I were talking about design, life, and our enthusiasm for our careers and the future. He made a comment about how we both have made it a habit to surround ourselves with extremely passionate people. And it's true, all of our good friends are people who are enthusiastic about something and aren't content with just settling. They are people who keep challenging us to be better and help remind us of our passions when we are having a rough time.
I reflected a bit on that during my drive back to Hutch and realized how true that was. Most importantly, I realize how important these people are to my life.
This weekend really reminded myself that I need to get out and give my creative batteries a good recharging on a regular basis. It's easy to turn on autopilot and just cruise along.
This week my evenings have been spent developing some rockin' CSS skills. If you don't know what CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is, it is behind the scenes code that makes many, if not all, of the websites you visit on a daily basis at look pretty.
Since I've been knee deep in this fascinating part of web design, I'm finding myself laying in bed problem solving instead of catching some Zzzzz's. My brain starts thinking of lines of code to make things look the way I want it to.
It's such a great mix of creative and technical problem solving. And it definitely keeps the mind working and the gears turning. It feels like there's a never ending supply of knowledge out there that my brain just wants to soak up.
Do you have something (besides thinking about the bills to pay, next day schedule, etc.) in your life that keeps you awake at night?
“If you want to be successful in a particular field or endeavor, I think
perseverance is one of the key qualities. It’s very important that you
find something that you care about, that you have a deep passion for,
because you’re going to have to devote a lot of your life to it.” –
George Lucas
Have I posted that image before? Maybe...Either way how true is that? I love little moments when I realize that I absolutely love what I do. Love it.
I think I am starting to realize its the moments when I feel a bit more stressed out and take a step back when I realize how much being a designer really means to me and what it has done in my life.
Are you drawn to passionate people as much as I am? I like to listen to people talk about their profession when you can just hear how much passion they have for it. It's kind of something I've been thinking about after visiting some friends a few weeks ago. I am starting to notice more and more how I've surrounded myself with people who truly care and have a love for what they do.
I challenge you to find your passion and make it your life. It's amazing how you feel once you do what you love everyday. Life just sort of makes sense.
I'm not exactly sure how I found The Best Pessimist earlier this week, but I'm glad I did. Great chill instrumental stuff. I've been streaming it on Grooveshark at work the past couple of days along with some Kings of Leon.
"Sometimes you just have to stop, take a breath and say, "Where I'm at is pretty great."
Whenever I go visit my friends Nate and Ashley, I'm always reminded to set goals for myself and really strive to achieve them. I'm always reminded to do a bit more with my life than what I'm doing. I'm brought back down from the clouds and grounded again.
This weekend was the first time in a long time that I really felt I was living in and enjoy the moment.
My brain wasn't focused on a million different things. My brain was
focused on having a great time with old friends and new friends and soaking up every
minute of it. I think one of the most amazing feeling is enjoying yourself so much you don't realize how much time has past...Say 2 hours huddled around a kitchen table playing a board game and another 2 hours enjoying wings at Green Mill with a dozen conversations going on at once with a ton of laughter. On my drive back home I had a good amount of time to reflect and realize how high strung my brain is most of the time.
So tonight, I started doing yoga again to help calm my brain and body. To remind myself to breathe and focus on the here and now. To be a bit more centered and calm.
During one of the routines I did, the instructor said:
Every day you're somewhere different and you're exactly where you need to be.
I've heard it as many times as I've done the routine in the past but for some reason, this time it resonated with me a bit more. It stuck in my brain. Maybe it's because of how much reflecting I've been doing in the past week or so.
I think it fits right in with another quote I heard elsewhere about taking your life and the situations you're in that you're not happy with and changing you perspective.
So on the good days and on the bad days, you're life is right where it's supposed to be. Just use that brain of yours and shift your perspective a little bit and enjoy the moment- it only happens once in a lifetime.
After fighting a blustery, cold walk to my mailbox after work today I was happy to find a package in there. It was this great little screen print from a college friend. How great is that?
I was listening to some interviews with Josh Radnor, the writer, director, and actor from HappyThankYouMorePlease last night and I was intrigued by some of the things he said. He talked about the concept of "Thank You, More Please." That after you say "Thank You" for something good, having the after thought of "more please", to encourage more good things, good vibes for the future.
So I'm going to bring the concept of giving gratitude for the good things in my life a bit more. Fight off the pessimistic and cynical side of my brain and the negative things that can come out of my mouth. I think we all could use some good, positive vibes because our lives really are great. We just have a tendency to put more focus and emphasis on the bad. And that really doesn't get us to far in life.
How many of you are How I Met Your Mother fans? I'm sure a good number of you are. Did you know the actor that plays Ted Mosby has also written and directed a movie? It's called HappyThankYouMorePlease.
It's a feel good movie about trying to figure life out and find what's meant to be along the way. There's a line in the movie that stuck out to me:
"Sadness be gone, let’s be people who deserve to be loved, who are worthy, cause we are worthy."
How true is that? And not just in the sense of find the love of your life, but allowing yourself to be loved by your friends, your family, and more importantly- yourself.
Wow, another year is pretty much gone! What a year, what a year. On my 3 1/2 hour drive home for Christmas and the 3 1/2 hours back I had a lot of time to reflect on 2011. And just even the last two years since college graduation.
This year I am not making a formal list of resolutions. Some people say
that writing goals down is the best way to make sure you complete them.
I'm starting to find that when I look back at that list (after
forgetting about it 2 months in...) I am disappointed in those things I
wasn't able to cross off. And that tends to be more of the focus than
the things that were accomplished. Because many times those
accomplishments weren't planned goals.
For 2012:
Greet every opportunity to grow and learn
Keep on track and stay focused
Enjoy time with friends and family
Have more grand adventures
Continue to learn and be curious about the world
Keep finding who I am
Enjoy whatever comes my way
So those are my list of resolutions. For the little things like getting healthy or save money or whatever, I am just going to keep these thoughts in mind:
Challenge myself but start by taking baby steps
Understand that results don't happen overnight- they take time, patience, and hardwork
Here's to another year ahead. Twenty Twelve- Bring it on!
What are you absolutely passionate about that if it wasn't in your life, you would be nothing? I think about my life and what I am passionate about all the time. Mostly because I am interested in so many different creative things that sometimes I question whether or not I am heading down the right path.
And then I have moments like I did this week where I have been working on a logo for work that was causing me a bit of stress. I put a certain amount of pressure on myself to succeed at a high level, to push my boundaries just a little bit further. After all is said and done, I got word that they love it. I literally threw my hands in the air and pretty much shouted, "YES!!!" in the middle of the office then walked to my office with a big smile on my face. It is moments like that when I realize that I already am doing what I'm passionate about, that I'm headed down the right path for me. (I'm exciting to share this project with you when it's all said and done! It will be awhile though. Just keep an eye out for it.) I think I understand now that the other creative interests are there to keep me grounded, to keep my graphic design eye from getting burnt out.
When I was in St. Cloud this past weekend visiting some dear friends of mine, one of them told me about a speaker he listened to at a conference not long ago. The speaker said something along the lines of, "You can't do anything. In order to find out what you are truly going to excel at figure out where your talent and passions intersect."
Well..On my drive back to Hutch I started thinking about it a bit more. I agree with the last part. I think it's possible to do anything, but it's more of a question of how well you are going to do at it. I asked my boss one day what he thought about this and he said something that resonated with me a bit, "Why waste time trying to perfect so many things when it isn't possible? Why not focus on the few things you are good at and really become an expert on them?"
For the longest time, I've had this drive to change somebody's life through my career. I wasn't ever quite sure how that until now. It kind of just dawned on me that every day I get to live this out by helping people who are living out their dream, owning a business, doing what they love, continue to do this.
Life is short. Live your dream. Wear your passion.
P.S. I've decided to hold off on the 30 Day Challenge this month. After looking at my schedule I may be gone more than I think. I want to make sure I don't half ass a challenge so I'm going to wait until I can put a bit more effort into it.
Oh...Enter the giveaway! You know you want some new art for your walls! With Christmas coming, if your walls are full, it would make a lovely gift! Enter here. Giveaway closes on Sunday!
I'm always afraid I'm going to run out of ideas. And I've still got years and years ahead of me! I think this is a nice little list of ways to keep the brain going.
I have a whole notebook loaded with ideas I want to accomplish. Folders in my hard drive of half started pieces. But after 8 hours of working on various stuff for work, most days the last thing I want to do is sit down and make my brain think anymore. One of these days though, I'm going to get into super graphic design mode and just start pushing out design after design.
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people." Steve Jobs
Thank you for all the contributions you made to this world. Technology and animation will never be the same because of what you accomplished. As a graphic designer, I thank you for keeping typography in mind while creating the amazing machine I use every day. The world will miss your genius and innovative spirit.
Last week I was listening to a Freakonomics podcast about where all the great hitters of baseball went. Now days it just seems like more of the focus on the match ups in pitching. But a quote about fielding stuck out to me:
"But great defense has grit and elegance. It's larceny. You get to steal something, a hit, that a second ago belonged to someone else."
Instead of Tuesday Tunes, I've got a little something else I would like to share. Last Friday I was listening to a bunch of the TED Talks podcasts and found a particular one interesting. It is spoken word poetry by the wonderful Sarah Kay. She has a great project called Project V.O.I.C.E.
About Project V.O.I.C.E. "Project V.O.I.C.E. (Vocal Outreach Into Creative Expression) is a national movement that celebrates and inspires youth self-expression through Spoken Word Poetry. Conceived in 2004, Project V.O.I.C.E. encourages young people to engage with the world around them and use Spoken Word Poetry as an instrument through which they can explore and better understand their culture, their society, and ultimately themselves. Project V.O.I.C.E. brings together performance, writing, and a supportive environment to inspire youth to recognize that their views are significant, valid, and necessary."
The poem was at the start of her presentation. It is called "If I Should Have a Daughter."
If I should have a daughter…Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”
She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried.
And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick,you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.”
But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it.
I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that’s how my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say, “Thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away.
You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.
And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.
“Baby,” I’ll tell her “Remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”
Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.
Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.
Tuesday Tunes will be back next week. I've been finding some great music lately.
Alrighty you fine folks, I am heading out of town for the weekend. I shall be back Monday afternoon/evening with a post of some sort. There's a stack of ideas sitting on my desk, in my phone, scribbled in my sketchbooks and on post it notes, and some shoved in the dark corners of my brain. I have a lot I want to share but cannot seem to find the time lately to post them. But that's what happens when the weather gets nice and it's time to go out and play. I hope you've been enjoying the great weather as I have.
I may try and get a post in while I'm at home. We shall see. Until then, I leave you with these fine words of wisdom:
“Rely upon your own judgment; be true to your own conscience; follow the light that is within you; all outward lights are so many will-o’-the-wisps. There will be those who tell you that you are foolish; that your judgment is faulty; that your conscience is all awry, and that the light within you is darkness; but heed them not. If what they say is true, the sooner you, as a searcher of wisdom, find it out the better, and you can only make that discovery by bringing your powers to the test. Therefore, pursue your course bravely.”James Allen
Found via DesignLoveFest. (Bri has an awesome blog. Check it out.)
And when you read "It's Friiiiiidayyyy" you have to kind of sing it like that ridiculous "Friday" song. It's become a tradition on Fridays that it gets passed around at work. This morning I woke up, realized what day it is, and started saying it...
But, I found a quote I would like to start the weekend with:
“There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they’re necessary to reach the places we’ve chosen to go.”
- Richard Bach
It has been a busy week. No time for sitting in front of the computer. Now it's off to work...
