Shake it Up

Andre Cassagnes, the dude who invented the Etch-a-Sketch, passed away last month at the age of 86. An electrical technician, Cassagnes came up with the idea in his garage when he peeled a translucent decal from a light switch plate and found pencil mark images transferred to the opposite face. Initially dubbed the Telecran, the toy was renamed L’Ecran Magique, or ‘The Magic Screen,’ and made its debut at a toy fair in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1959.

Funny thing about Etch-a-Sketches.

Using one is ridiculously easy. But making anything worthwhile with it is really, really hard. The cool thing about the Etch-a-Sketch is how easy it makes it to start over.

Which makes the Etch-a-Sketch a lot like life.

Living is pretty easy, thanks to the fact that your brain, heart and lungs put much of it on auto-pilot. Making your life into anything worthwhile, however, is hard. Harder than spending an hour on Facebook or watching a Golden Girls marathon. But God, the dude who invented life, also made it pretty easy to start over.

Each new day is an opportunity to start again. With a clean slate and a new optimism.

Sure, you may have messed up yesterday in grand, spectacular fashion. It may not have turned out the way you would have liked. Maybe you got lazy, lashed out, fell down or said something you regret.

That’s ok. Today is a new day, a chance to try again.

Shake it up.