“Duck, Duck, Goose” by Jason Kotecki. 12 x 12. Acrylic on wood. Original is SOLD 🔴 Shop this art!
This clever painting is a fun mashup of a vintage Nintendo video game classic and the old-school game from childhood, Duck, Duck, Goose!
Apparently, the game originated with Swedish immigrants and was originally called “Anka Anka, Gråttanka.” Which doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.
Meanwhile, folks in Minnesota call it Duck, Duck, Gray Duck.
The object of this game is to walk in a circle, tapping on each player’s head until one is finally chosen; the chosen player must then chase the picker to avoid becoming the next picker.
Whatever you call it, you can plan on people giving you a knowing smile once they figure out the meaning of this witty work of art!
“Open Gate” by Jason Kotecki. Digital. 🖼️ Shop this art!
There’s always been a danger in naming this brand “Escape Adulthood.”
You see, it’s easy for people to discount all of us as irresponsible, immature, cotton-headed ninny noggins who are avoiding the responsibilities of adulthood and trying to escape the pressures of the “real world.”
As a pragmatist, I guess I might be tempted to think the same way if I didn’t know any better.
It gives me solace to know that we are not alone. J. R. R. Tolkien, author of those little-known books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, was often accused of writing fairy tales that were nothing more than the escapist’s way out of this so-called real world. His reply was simple and brilliant. He proposed that everything was dependent on that from which one is escaping:
“We view the flight of the deserter and the escape of a prisoner very differently. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home?”
–J. R. R. Tolkien
Exactly.
Paying bills, upholding responsibility, and making hard decisions; these are important and necessary hallmarks of adult life. But the deep-down person we were when we were kids is much closer to the real us than the stilted version we often present to the world around us.
Cynicism, common knowledge, and the rules that don’t exist have imprisoned us from being our true selves: passionate, playful, and curious creatures who dream big dreams and are filled with faith, hope, and love.
So no, we’re not about shirking responsibilities or ignoring reality.
“Penguin Possible” by Jason Kotecki. Digital. 🖼️ Shop this art!
“I do have dreams, but I try to keep them realistic.”
No one likes to admit they don’t have dreams. But no one likes to be called a fool, either. Or worse yet, a failure. After all, the bigger you dream, the more likely you are to fail. Claiming to have realistic dreams makes you sound smart. It gives the impression that you’re going places, likely to succeed, and are not to be sidetracked chasing any childish, crackpot schemes. But one of those words is terribly problematic.
The word “realistic.”
Who’s to say what’s realistic or not?
Do we really believe that Orville and Wilbur Wright were deemed “realistic” by their fellow townsfolk while they used their bicycle repair shop profits to try and build the world’s first “flying machine”?
After all, in 1902 (just ONE year before the Wright Brothers’ great success), Lord Kelvin—the otherwise brilliant dude who determined the correct value of absolute zero as approximately –273.15 degrees Celsius—said, “No aeroplane will ever be practically successful.”
And just fifty-eight years after the Wright Brothers’ breakthrough, was President John F. Kennedy being “realistic” in 1961 when he declared that America would send a man to the Moon by the end of the decade? (By the way, the first handheld pocket calculator would not be invented until five years after Kennedy’s speech.)
Meanwhile, is it “realistic” today to think that we will ever find a cure for AIDS or autism, or Alzheimer’s disease?
When it comes to dreams, this world is suffering from a bigness deficiency. I don’t think there’s anybody alive who is dreaming too big. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s possible. I don’t need studies about how much of our brain capacity goes unused to tell me about the potential of mankind. Just look at examples. Whether it’s the invention of the artificial heart, or the guy who climbed Mount Everest blind, or the inspiring examples of Holocaust survivors. We are created to do things that don’t, at first glance, seem very realistic.
If a dream is realistic, it’s not really a dream. It’s a to-do.
If you want to be realistic, be realistic about your fears. After all, most of the things you worry about will never happen. But when it comes to your dreams, leave realism at home. At least at the beginning.
No matter how big you think you’re dreaming, it’s not big enough. A good dream has to be kind of crazy. And improbable.
“Big dreams create the magic that stir men’s souls to greatness.”
—Bill McCartney
If you’re going to dream, you might as well dream big. And if you’re ever accused of dreaming too big, then you can rest assured that you’re on the right track. Just pretend you’re a long-lost member of the Wright clan.
Don’t worry about being realistic. And be very, very cautious about what you label as “impossible.”
For as John Andrew Holmes wisely said, “Never tell a young person that something cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for somebody ignorant enough of the impossible to do that thing.”
“Bee Optimistic” by Jason Kotecki. 8 x 10. Acrylic on paper. Original is SOLD 🔴 Shop this art!
The phone call came minutes after I walked off stage after a speaking program. It was my wife Kim, alerting me that my dad wanted to arrange an urgent family meeting for the next day. As he has a bit of a history of overhyping things, I couldn’t help but wonder about the true importance of this meeting, especially since the following day was the only day I’d be home in the span of a week.
A call back to Dad confirmed that the situation was serious, and he was adamant that he didn’t want to tell us the news by phone.
* Gulp *
And so began a 24-hour waiting period in which the only thing to do was entertain worst-case scenarios and pray that somehow, things would work out. I spent the rest of the evening trying to get my mind off it, suddenly empathizing with everyone who has ever had to wait for a diagnosis. No matter how dire the news, there is a certain peace in at least knowing what you’re dealing with. But the waiting (and the not knowing) is torture.
The next day, my brothers and our wives convened at the home of my youngest sibling. While waiting for my parents to arrive, we ate some pumpkin desserts my sister-in-law had whipped up, as if the sweetness would somehow counteract the sour news we all anticipated.
A million years later, my parent’s car pulled into the driveway. My mom looked like she was wearing a white sweatshirt with the hood pulled over her head. This did not look good, and seemed to confirm our suspicions that this terrible news was centered around her.
As they got out of the car, we could see that Mom was in fact wearing a beekeeping costume, and my dad was dressed as a bee!
What the?!
We were all confused as could be, but still secretly wished that this ridiculousness was a sign that the news was not as bad as we feared. Maybe this was just “Dad being Dad.”
Hugs we exchanged and it seemed like my parents were in good spirits. I wanted to exhale, assured that my worst fears were just the by-product of an overactive imagination. I glanced at the uncertain smiles on the faces of my family members and hoped that we’d soon be pleasantly surprised with positive news that we never saw coming.
Then my dad set up a makeshift cardboard podium in the living room and pulled out a homemade sign made on loose-leaf paper that he taped to the front. It read “Stuff Happens.” Below that was a smiley face next to a frowny face. The frowny face had an “x” through it. Hope quickly evaporated from the room. It felt hard to breathe. We braced for the worst.
All eyes were fixed on my Dad, who started things off by reminding us of how many tough challenges we’d gotten through as a family over the years. On and on he went, testing the patience of his children and his wife, who was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room.
Finally, this man, my father, the one dressed up like a bee, bravely told us that he had cancer.
At first, my heart plummeted into my stomach. But as he explained the kind of cancer he had (prostate), shared that they had caught it so early, and told us how high the survival rate was, hope slowly returned. He said that he and Mom had resolved to be positive and optimistic, which is why they decided to lighten the mood by coming dressed in the Halloween costumes they had worn at a party the night before.
He said, “We hoped it would take a little of the sting out of the news we had to share.”
I am not even kidding.
We eventually learned that my parents had worn the costumes for the entire two-hour drive up to Wisconsin, a trip that included a stop to pump gas, as well as a run through the Burger King drive-thru.
As the mood lightened and we followed my parents’ optimistic lead, all I could think about was, I bet no one in the history of ever has told his family that he had cancer while wearing a bee costume.
But that’s exactly what my dad did.
He also served as a shining example of how even though we can’t control what life throws at us, we can control whether or not we’ll go down looking or swing for the fences.
My dad came though the other side, prostate-free but filled with perspective and gratitude. Since then, my Mom has overcome her own battle with uterine cancer. And both tell me they feel like they won the lottery. In their regular visits to the Cancer Treatment Center of America, they encountered people who were in a much tougher fight, many of whom weren’t likely to make it through. Meanwhile, Kim and I have met a lot of beautiful families through our work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, all of whom have been dealt hands I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. It’s impossible not to want to help.
But how do you help fight cancer? It’s so big and scary and ugly, and we are so small.
One of the things my dad does is hand out Bee pins.
Shortly after the big meeting with the bee and his keeper, I made a painting for my dad featuring his favorite insect and the message, “Bee Optimistic.” It was equal parts encouragement and tribute to his positivity. He asked if I could make him a “Bee Optimistic” pin that he could wear every day. I did, and he does.
He’s purchased hundreds of pins, handing them out to anyone he meets who has been touched by the shadow of cancer, like he’s a volunteer at a marathon handing out water to the the runners.
Because he is.
Fighting cancer is a hard race. Faith and hope is the water you need to keep going. When my Dad hands out the Bee pins, he is handing out hope. Although the action is small, the impact is huge.
We can’t control what happens to us in life, but we can control how we react to it. No matter who you are, people are watching, be it your kids, your employees, or your biggest fans.
