This painting was inspired by a tradition that Badger fans have at University of Wisconsin football games. Between the third and fourth quarters, the song “Jump Around” is boomed through the loudspeakers and all of the red-clad fans do exactly that.

It reminded me of those old electronic football games in which tiny plastic athletes buzzed around on an green metal field. Readers of a certain age will know exactly what I’m talking about, and this painting will bring back all sorts of memories.

For the of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, well, I guess you had to be there.

With football season now upon us, I am reminded of a cool idea the leader of an insurance agency shared with me at one of my speaking programs. During pigskin season, he allows his employees to wear jeans and the jersey of their favorite college or pro team. (He even buys the jersey as a welcome aboard present!) Then, if their team wins over the weekend, they can wear it again on Monday. He reports that those days are always the most light-hearted and energized.

Even if you work in an environment where jerseys wouldn’t be appropriate, perhaps everyone could represent their favorite team with a necktie, lapel pin, socks, or coffee mug.

I think it’s worth figuring something out, because this sounds like a pretty good way to keep a team buzzing to me.

Exciting news! I am happy to announce a brand new public exhibition of a series of paintings I’ve been working on as part of my 2016 Tinker Project.

It’s called “Best Friends Forever” and it’s a collection of winning combinations, an exploration of relationships, and how sometimes, joining forces can make something greater than the sum of its parts.

I have shared little sneak peeks here and there on social media, but until now, have only revealed the whole series publicly to the 80 attendees who were at the recent Escape Adulthood Summit.

I’d love for you to check it out and let me know what you think. I hope it reminds you of the special people in your life that bring out the best in you.

You’ve been there. You’ve attended a conference, a retreat, a networking meeting, or some other event that required you to wear a nametag. And then, hours after the event is over, you look down in horror to find that you are STILL wearing it. It clings to your shirt, mocking you like a group of middle schoolers laughing at your generic bargain buy shoes from KMart.

Doh!

You shamefully reflect back to calculate how many people must have seen you wearing your idiocy on your shirt, but count yourself fortunate that you didn’t have to undergo death by embarrassment from someone actually pointing out the faux pas to your face.

Because as everyone knows, although nametags are useful for things like networking meetings, they are to be removed immediately after such events.

Immediately.

Or are they?

Most of the hidden rules we live by don’t seem all that much like rules. That’s why we barely notice them. Removing your nametag immediately after an event doesn’t seem so much a rule as it does a good bit of common sense. Especially if you want to avoid giving off the impression that you’re an absent-minded doofus.

Besides, who would even want to break a rule like that? There’s too much too risk and nothing to gain.

Wanna bet?

My good friend Scott made a career out of wearing a nametag every day. After attending an event in college, he made the fateful decision to keep his nametag on instead of throwing it in the trash like everyone else did as they walked out the door. He’s been wearing one every day since. For over 13 years. Just over 5,000 days straight as of this writing. He made a living writing, speaking and consulting on becoming more approachable, his expertise drawn from all of the things he’s learned through this experience. He’s written a dozen books, he’s been invited to a number of countries to speak, and he’s been featured in media outlets such as USA Today, 20/20 and The Wall Street Journal.

All because he dared to break a rule that everyone else is afraid to break.

There is a lot to gain by breaking the rules you might not consider worth breaking.

Living by them mindlessly? Now that’s risky.

[ This is an excerpt from Penguins Can’t Fly +39 Other Rules That Don’t Exist, a beautiful and inspiring book that will help you uncover and break the so-called rules that could be holding you back from a life of awesome. Get it here! ]

Several years ago, Kim and I were hanging out at the Memorial Union on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison. Overlooking Lake Mendota, it’s the perfect place to sit in one of the trademark yellow, orange, or green chairs and people watch.

On this day, my eyes were drawn to a small family—Mom, Dad, and a little girl with pigtails—walking along the shoreline. The girl was a few yards ahead of her parents when she spotted a puddle, a remnant of the rainstorm that had drenched the city the day before.

Like the Millennium Falcon being pulled toward the Death Star by its powerful tractor beam, the girl was drawn to the pool of water.

Her intent was clear: She was going to get up close and personal with that puddle.

My first reaction was strong and immediate: “Nooooo!”

I don’t remember how the parents reacted, but I was shocked at what my reaction said about me: I was officially a grown-up. The little girl’s primal urge was to pounce through that puddle, while mine was to pull her away. No greater chasm exists than the space between those two extremes. There was a time when I was on her team, but at some point when I wasn’t paying attention, I inadvertently switched sides.

Hoodwinked by Adultitis.

Most people do switch sides at some point in their life. I suspect it happens at different times for different people. Perhaps the moment is directly correlated to the time at which one becomes responsible for doing their own laundry. Or maybe a soul can only take so many stern rebukes and warnings to stay out of the rain and puddles.

I find it humorous that we grown-ups eagerly drench ourselves in long showers, immerse ourselves in tubs infused with bath oils with names like Lavender Rain, and spend hundreds of dollars to get soaked at super-size water parks, and yet we treat a simple puddle like a pool of hydrochloric acid and we run from the rain like the Wicked Witch of the West running for her life.

Like all rules that don’t exist, this one is propped up by some pretty confusing logic.

Apparently a grown man can scream like a school girl while hurtling down a high water slide, but should he dance through a puddle like Gene Kelly, he gets labeled as crazy.
What’s crazy is how we act when it does rain. We scurry from the store to our car like cockroaches who’ve just had the lights turned on. If we are without an umbrella, we desperately cover our heads with newspapers or flimsy pieces of plastic. We temporarily forget that wet clothes dry and mud washes out.

The fact is this: When you are an adult, there is nothing that makes you feel more foolish than getting soaked in the rain for no reason when a perfectly good shelter is only a few feet away.

But to a child, no sight is more foolish than a group of adults huddling under shelter when there is perfectly good rain to dance in only a few feet away.
Two sides. Two choices. Only one makes you feel more alive.

The cool thing about being an adult is that you get to pick.

It makes one wonder, are we truly living or are we just trying not to get our shoes wet?

[Gene Kelly — Singin’ in the Rain]

[ This is an excerpt from Penguins Can’t Fly +39 Other Rules That Don’t Exist, a beautiful and inspiring book that will help you uncover and break the so-called rules that could be holding you back from a life of awesome. Get it here! ]

[ This is an excerpt from Penguins Can’t Fly +39 Other Rules That Don’t Exist, a beautiful and inspiring book that will help you uncover and break the so-called rules that could be holding you back from a life of awesome. Get it here! ]

Moms everywhere seem to be united in their desire to make sure that if we leave the house, we do so with clean underpants.

In case we get into an accident. Naturally.

Because if you get into an accident, and you are rushed to the hospital, and the emergency workers are required to remove your underwear, and they discover that your tighty-whiteys are not as white as they should be, your mother will be notified immediately about her automatic induction into the Bad Mom Hall of Shame.

Or so I gather.

“Did you hear Linda’s boy was in an accident?”

“Yes, it’s all over the news. I guess he’s okay, but I heard from somebody who knows somebody that his underwear wasn’t clean.”

“What a shame. You know, I always had my doubts about that family.”

Once I was in Grand Junction, Colorado, to speak at a conference for early childhood professionals. I got into a discussion with a lady from Denver who told me of a memorable drive through the mountains a year earlier. She was driving along, and out of nowhere, a massive boulder tumbled down the mountain and crashed right in front of her car. It was so enormous, she could feel the ground shake upon impact. Yikes. Fortunately, it didn’t land on her car, and no one was injured.

So why interrupt the discussion about this important “rule” involving underwear with a tale of a giant rock?

Simple. If I’m driving down the road, minding my own business, and a multiton boulder lands a few feet from my vehicle, if I had clean underwear BEFORE the incident, I sincerely doubt they’d remain as such AFTER the incident.

In fact, if I was involved in ANY serious accident that required an emergency trip to a hospital in which people other than me were removing my underwear, I think it’s safe to say that they’d be in a similar state of squalor.

Which leads me to conclude that wearing clean underpants, although the preferred way to go, is not as crucial as our mothers would have us believe.

Perhaps the better rule to follow would be to watch for falling rocks.

[ This is an excerpt from Penguins Can’t Fly +39 Other Rules That Don’t Exist, a beautiful and inspiring book that will help you uncover and break the so-called rules that could be holding you back from a life of awesome. Get it here! ]

Kim and I had a big test early on in our parenting adventure.

At dinner one evening when she was about two, Lucy got to drink out of a “big girl cup” with a straw. And for the first time ever, she discovered how to blow bubbles in her milk. In our household, this is on par with first words, first steps, and learning how to dunk cookies in milk.

It’s kind of a big deal.

The coolest part is that she figured it out on her own; we didn’t have to teach her. It was awesome witnessing the moment of discovery, when surprise transformed into delight. However, when her cup had become entirely consumed by bubbles, she actually grew concerned and seemed disappointed when she asked, “Where did milk go?”

“Don’t worry, it’ll come back,” I assured her.

And as the bubbles dispersed, it did! (One of the perks of parenting is presenting the illusion of being all-knowing.)

Naturally, blowing bubbles in her milk became much more interesting to Lucy than actually eating dinner. And Adultitis strongly encouraged both Kim and me to tell her to cut it out. The inner debate about how to proceed was more crucial than one might expect. For you see, we give out little cards to every person who attends one of our speaking programs, and it features this comic strip:

We’ve handed out thousands and thousands and thousands of these cards. Would we now become the parents who admonish our child for blowing bubbles in her milk? Kim and I exchanged a look that indicated we didn’t want to be.

I stopped the inner conversation in my head and quickly analyzed the situation: What’s the big deal? What are my main concerns? For one, I wanted to make sure she actually ate her dinner in a reasonable amount of time. And secondly, I was not especially keen on cleaning up any milk-bubble overflows.

So we made it clear that she needed to keep the straw (and the bubbles) in the glass. And after a few more minutes of bubble-blowing fun, we pulled the glass away and told her she could resume after she ate a few more bites of her dinner. I was amazed at the responsiveness we got! Inadvertently, we had turned blowing bubbles in milk into an incentive more powerful than M&M’s (which up to that point, had been the currency of choice in our household)!

It’s easy to jump into automatic mode in our roles as parents, teachers or leaders and respond to situations in the same way we’ve seen other parents, teachers, and leaders do it, without ever stopping for just a second to question if there might be another way. Stopping that knee jerk-reaction is the hard part, but once we do, the other (better) way is not that hard to find.

That’s why thinking about these rules that don’t exist is such an important pastime. The more we do it, the more of them we recognize. And the easier it is to stop and search for a better way.

In the end, I think we passed the test by honoring one of the special joys of childhood while avoiding a mess and steering clear of turning into total pushovers. (It was nice to have some confidence going into potty training.…)

Meanwhile, although it may not be a preferred habit for dinner parties and state dinners, my little personal wish for Lucy is that she never stops blowing bubbles in her milk.

[ This is an excerpt from “Penguins Can’t Fly +39 Other Rules That Don’t Exist.” Order it now and read about 39 more rules that might be holding you back from living the story you deserve. ]

Many well-intentioned parents, grandparents, and teachers urge kids to get a job with good benefits.

I couldn’t agree more. Except.

Except that when most people talk about “benefits,” they usually mean really, really good health insurance (with full dental!) and some sort of retirement plan that will take care of you when you’re put out to pasture.

When I was going through high school, trying to decide what I wanted to do in life, I got the impression that these specific benefits were very important. Even more important than liking the actual job I was doing to obtain said benefits.

That seemed backward to me. The idea of doing a job I hated (or only kinda liked) just for the so-called benefits made shooting myself out of a cannon into a brick wall more appealing.

Fortunately, my parents did support me as I gravitated toward a career in art that pretty much assured there would be no such benefits.

It blows my mind how many people make major life decisions based almost exclusively on this narrow view of “benefits.” They are willing to stay stuck in dead-end jobs that eat their soul just because they have a good vision plan. I think that a Cadillac health insurance program or generous vacation packages are fine factors to consider when hashing out the pros and cons of any potential job. But they should never be the only ones. And maybe not even the main ones.

The truth is that my job offers NONE of the benefits in the traditional sense. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. In fact, my job as an artist, author, and speaker, comes with TONS of benefits:

• The work I do makes a difference.
• I spend every day doing things I love. I set my own hours.
• I am rewarded for the results my hard work generates.
• I don’t have to answer to clueless middle managers, corporate suits, or short-sighted shareholders.
• I get paid to travel to cool places.
• I have no dress code. (I literally wear jeans or sweatpants every day.)
• I can take time off whenever I want. (Kim and I were BOTH able to take a maternity leave when our kids were born.)
• On most days, I get to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my family.
• My daily commute is seven seconds long.

Now these benefits don’t come without a price. (In fact, ALL benefits come with a price of some sort.) Most of mine have required many years of hard work and persistence. Then there’s the pressure of being responsible for generating income (no sales = no groceries). Also, I don’t have a pension or company-matching 401k program, but I love what I do so much that I don’t envision ever really retiring. Oh yeah, and I have to pay a few hundred bucks a month for health insurance.

Totally worth it.

So yes, you should definitely have a job with benefits.

just make sure they’re the ones you really want.

[ This is an excerpt from “Penguins Can’t Fly +39 Other Rules That Don’t Exist.” Order it now and read all about 39 other rules that might be holding you back from living the story you deserve. ]

My art almost always contains an element of whimsy. It also often involves inspiration, encouragement, or entertainment. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to make something that combines all three.

Other times, I end up with something that’s just plain silly.

It all started with a mango with a mullet.

And I just could not stop. I felt compelled to paint pictures of food sporting hairstyles of varying levels of ridiculousness. When the dust settled, the series totaled nine in all, including cauliflower with a combover, cabbage with cornrows, and a pear with a perm.

I’m pretty sure they possess no significant redeeming qualities, but perhaps they will make you smile.

And if you ever wondered what a peanut would look like with a pompadour, well, now you know.

After a big snowfall, it was it was easy to start visioning what sort of fort you would build. Your imagination kicking into high gear, you’d think about building two levels, with windows — and turrets! — along with a few secret passageways and, of course, extra thick walls to protect against enemy snowball attacks.

Here’s the thing: no matter how grandiose your plans, you always start out with a plain, untouched pile of snow. But if you caught sight of the neighbor kids’ fort — the ones who got started a few hours ahead of you — it might be easy to get a little jealous. I mean, they have a freaking moat. And is that a snowball CATAPULT?

No matter. You are determined to make your snow fort even better. You know you have it in you. But first, you figure you should probably get an extra layer of clothes on. (You’re going to be out here for a while, after all.) Then you think it might be wise to draw up a plan for your fort. Preparation is power! In the middle of deciding how big to make your windows on the second floor, you notice an elderly neighbor is out retrieving his mail. Perhaps it would serve you well to ask him for some expert snow fort building tips. After he regales you with amazing stories from his childhood and arms you with some crucial advice you’re sure those neighbor kids don’t know about, you are ready to get going. But then you notice your toes and fingers are getting a little chilly. Might as well head inside for a bit to warm up with some hot chocolate. You’re going to need to be 100% for this undertaking!

While sipping your warm drink indoors, you spy the neighborhood kids’ fort. You’re pretty sure they now have three stories on that thing, and they seem to be having quite a blast playing in it. Discouraged, you lament the fact that they had better snow, stronger muscles, more help, and two sheets of plywood from their dad’s shed. “Must be nice,” you scoff.

It’s getting dark now anyway. The snow fort of your dreams will take shape…

…tomorrow.

We all have dreams. We can think about them, prepare for them, write about them, and talk about them. We can learn new skills, gather data, and collect all kinds of wise advice to give us the best chance of success.

All of these activities are important, but none are shortcuts.

But there is absolutely, positively, unequivocally no substitute for showing up and doing the work.

Rich Mullins was a contemporary Christian artist whose songs and perspective were a major influence on me during a crucial point in my life. He passed away in a tragic car accident when I was in college. I remember a chilly, late-night walk on campus during which I reflected on his life and the impact he’d had on the world. As autumn leaves crunched under my feet, I noticed stirring within my heart: a deep desire to make a similar impact. A dark voice of doubt tried to squelch it immediately. “Who do you think you are? You’re just a kid from a small town in Illinois!”

Fortunately, another voice came to my defense: “And Rich Mullins was ‘just’ a kid from a small town in Indiana. Why NOT you?”

I’ve always held on to that sentiment, especially when I’ve been intimidated, afraid, or feeling unworthy. Which happens a lot, especially when I’m about to give a speech to an audience that is out of my comfort zone. Yes, the people in the seats may have experience, social status, intelligence, or degrees that exceed my own, but I have something of value to bring to the table, too. I remind myself that my unique perspective may be just the thing that someone in that audience needs to hear on that particular day.

This past year, I had the privilege of being in the audience for a speech by Brené Brown at the World Domination Summit in Portland. As she vulnerably shared her own uneasiness with being on that stage, she offered an insight that served as a reminder to herself as well as each of us: “No one here belongs here more than me.”

I like that.

Confidence is not feeling like you’re better than everyone else. That’s cockiness. I believe that real confidence is the deep-seated belief that no one is better than you.

In the pantheon of crayon colors, brown rarely gets much love. It seems as though red and blue have the best publicists, for they are the colors most widely named as people’s favorites. But brown is a very useful hue, coming in quite handy when drawing trees, hair, skin, and many different kinds of animals. (And let’s not forget things made of chocolate!) Although we may have our favorites, no one color is better or more useful than any of the others. Each one is uniquely different and equally great.

Although we as people come from different backgrounds, have different viewpoints, and possess different strengths and talents, we each have a distinct brand of magic we are called to unleash on the world.

We need your magic.

Because if you remove one crayon from the box, our world becomes a little less beautiful.

ART: “More Than Me” by Jason Kotecki.

I’ve always been fascinated with where things come from, and perhaps I have Mr. Rogers to thank for that.

This painting depicts where Lincoln Logs come from, in case you were wondering. It’s a fact, look it up.

Lincoln Log Forest by Jason Kotecki

Where do dreams come from? Not the kind you have when you’re sleeping, the other kind. The kind you can’t stop thinking about when you’re awake. The kind that get you up in the morning, keep you going when times are tough, and fill you with joy when you think about them actually coming true.

I happen to believe that those dreams were baked into us from the beginning. They’re part of our spiritual DNA. We discover them at different points of our lives, but when we do, watch out. Nothing can stop us.

Unless we let it.

Dreams are powerful things, and Adultitis will stop at nothing to get us to derail us. It will stonewall us, discourage us, frustrate us, humiliate us and do whatever it can to get us to give up on our dream, or worse, downsize it. That way we will go through life sleepwalking, mistakenly thinking that we are indeed following our dream, without ever realizing it is but a shallow knockoff of the original.

Discouragement may be its biggest tool, for when the no’s pile up and the closed doors begin melting our resolve, it’s easy for Adultitis to step in and convince us that we were simply mistaken, overzealous, or — my favorite — unrealistic. It wants us to forget the fact that it takes a certain number of no’s to get to a yes. And the bigger the yes we need seems to be in direct proportion to the number of no’s we will have to hear.

Don’t give up your dreams. And for goodness’ sake, don’t downsize them, either. A yes may be just around the corner.

Dream on.

“Dream On” by Jason Kotecki. Made with Phostoshop.

Now available as a free download for Kim & Jason Insiders! You can print it out on your home printer and hang it on your fridge, in your office, or anywhere else that makes you happy.Get it here!

I became a father a little over four years ago. Before that, my wife and I had been married for eight years and worked together on our small business. We were used to working long days, coming and going as we pleased, and eating out at nice, quiet restaurants. We used to have a Cheerio-free backseat in our car. But now we have two kids, which practically makes me an expert at parenting.

An expert at knowing how little I actually know about it, that is.

Not having our first child until well into our marriage came with advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, we developed strong communication skills and had lots of time to discuss our hopes and strategies for parenthood. On the downside, we were pretty well set in our ways.

Eating out at nice, quiet restaurants is easy to get used to, after all.

Our first four years of parenthood were a challenging transition, as we learned how to juggle babies and the business on much less sleep than we were used to. I think we’re doing ok, but I still struggle from time to time with the new season I find myself in.

Seasons. Just as the year is divided into spring, summer, fall, and winter, our lives are divided into different seasons. Our life at fifty looks a lot different than our life at twenty.

My problem is that even though I am in the new season of early fatherhood, I still act like I should be doing the same things I did in my previous season, pre-kids. How can I work the same hours and accomplish the same number of things as I did before I had kids? It’s as frustrating as it is impossible. On the flip side, it often feels like the season I’m currently in will last forever. (Any other new parents out there feeling like you’ll be changing diapers FOREVER?!)

In the decade before kids, my job was to help people feeling rushed, stressed and overwhelmed. I worked long hours, did a lot of networking, made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot about business and marketing. With a lot of outside help, I was able to create a solid business that provides for my family. Now that the business is more stable than it was in the early days, I have the opportunity to put more focus on my role as a father and husband. It’s not that I’m supposed to neglect the business, it’s just that this season requires me to allocate my time a bit differently.

Because no matter who you are, or where you live, or how much money you have or don’t have, the one thing we all have in common is that we only get 24 hours per day.

And when we try to pack our day like a family of five heading out on a cross-country trip in a Mini Cooper, stress is sure to follow.

Stress happens when we forget what season we are in and try to do too much.

Are you in a state of near-constant overwhelm? Are you always feeling rushed, wishing you could find a way to add a few more hours to your day? Perhaps you are trying to do things that aren’t required of you during this particular season.

It would be easy if there were some obvious things you could sweep off your plate. Bad stuff. Useless stuff. Unimportant stuff. But it’s not a matter of doing things that aren’t worthwhile. My guess is that everything on your plate is good.

It’s awfully hard to let go of something that’s good.

Wanna know a secret?

Just because something is good doesn’t mean you have to do it.

Sometimes we have to say no to the good to say yes to the best.

Maybe some of those good things can be let go of now that you find yourself in a new season. And maybe some good things need to be put on the shelf until the next season. For instance, if you are seriously ill, maybe you need to give yourself permission to let go of some of your responsibilities so you can focus on getting well. If you are a parent, perhaps your career ambitions need to be downsized a bit in order to become the parent you want to be. Or maybe some of your social activities or volunteer efforts can be resumed when your kids are a little older.

Is it easy? Of course not. But neither is a life spiraling out of control, burdened by busyness and stress.

Slowly but surely, I’m learning to let go of the guilt of not working as much as I used to. I’m making a point to notice, appreciate, and savor the exciting blessings that are new to this season I now find myself in. I’m enjoying the breathing room that has been created by cleaning a few things off my plate, allowing more time for my kids, and more time for God.

And I’m realizing that as great as a quiet meal at a nice restaurant can be, it’s nothing compared to a quiet evening spent with a one-year-old eating Cheerios out of my hand.

So I decided to turn them into eCards for Kim & Jason Insiders. (Yet another perk of free membership.) Recipients don’t need to be an Insider to receive them, so you don’t have to worry about hassling them to sign up. Just a fun way to spread a little Christmas cheer without having to buy stamps :)

Here are the four designs:

• Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Gingerbread Man)
• O Christmas Tree (Christmas Tree)
• Santa Claus is Coming To Town (Stocking)
• A Holly Jolly Christmas (Wreath)

[ecard]

“Peaked” by Jason Kotecki. Made on an iPad.

I don’t get people who say that high school was the best time of their life. Sure, high school had some great moments, but I could have done without the zits, the awkwardness, and the over-dramatization of trivial things. I just find it sad to hear people say the prime of their life ended when they were 18 years old.

Don’t get me wrong; I often reflect on the “glory days” of my past: playing second base for the varsity team in high school, the comaraderie of taking shop with fellow art majors in college, and the sweet, sweet freedom of the pre-kid days of marriage.

But those glowing memories are revisionist history.

When I reminisce, I usually leave out the disastrous exchanges with cute girls, the excruciating term papers, and the fear of wondering if Kim and I would even be able to have kids.

We tend to gloss over the hard parts and embellish the good ones when we reflect on our past. Indeed, those glory days were not quite as glorious as we make them out to be. Let’s be honest, if any parent really remembered the initial two weeks after the birth of their first child, the human race would have been extinct long ago.

By all means, reflect back on the good memories and revel in the impressive accomplishments of your past. But don’t ever fall for the lie that your best is behind you.

If you are still breathing, there is still story to be told.

Make it a good one.

After all, everybody loves an exciting grand finale.

It’s Time to Dream Bigger by Jason Kotecki. Made with Photoshop.

When we were young, we had no trouble dreaming big. There was no other way to dream. We dreamed big, often, and with reckless abandon.

But somewhere along the way, our heart got broken. A dream didn’t come true and it hurt like hell.

That hurt stayed with us, even if only on a subconscious level. We trained ourselves to set our sights a little lower, to keep from ever feeling that way again. Many of us chalk up that “dreaming big” thing to a childish habit, and our practice of it goes the way of our belief in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. So we “mature,” and lower our sights to more “realistic” levels.

And then, in between the rebranding of our dreams into “goals,” it happens. Without ever consciously realizing it, our lives settle into the groove of mediocrity.

But I caution us all — including myself — to be careful about what we label as realistic. At best, it’s too often a limited estimation of what really IS possible, and at worst, it’s a cop-out.

Was the prospect of air travel “realistic” to the great grandparents of Orville and Wilbur Wright?

Was the prospect of an African American president “realistic” to the great grandparents of Barack Obama?

Was the prospect of using a wireless telephone to have a video call with a friend on the other side of the world “realistic” to the great grandparents of Steve Jobs?

The dreams we disregard and deem unrealistic today may turn out to be things our great grandkids take for granted.

The problems we face as a nation and as a global community are large. But the hope for a better future lies in big dreams, not realistic ones. Your story is destined to be great. But the people who collect amazing adventures are the ones with big dreams, not realistic ones.

The pain of broken dreams is real. But just as real is the exhilaration of seeing an “impossible” dream come true. The only dreams that have no chance of coming true are the ones never dreamed in the first place.

Now is NOT the time to downgrade your dreams. Now is NOT the time to be realistic.

Now is the time to dream BIGGER.

What expert decided that states that lean Republican should be red while the Democratic ones are designated as blue? Sometimes I wonder if mixing it up might contribute a little bit of levity to the whole process of choosing our nation’s leader. Because there sure is a lot of Adultitis involved as it is.

How ’bout some plaid? Polka dots? Or maybe some periwinkle?

Today’s election is an important one. But may we always remember that while we should always take our duties and the direction of our country seriously, we do not have to take ourselves seriously.

Living in the purple state of Wisconsin for more than a decade now has taught me that, by and large, most people sincerely want what’s best for our country. Sometimes, we just happen to have different ideas on how to go about it. While it’s easy to disagree with each other on issues, it’s hard to demonize someone when you keep in mind that deep down, their intent is the same as yours.

Now go vote. And let’s promise to all still be friends tomorrow.

Made with my iPad.

This was made for — and inspired by — my dad, who is pretty much the most optimistic guy I know.

Bee Optimistic. Acrylic and colored pencil on kraft paper.