This is a video series from my studio overlooking Lake Michigan. It’s where I slow down, listen, and make art that brings light into the world. This is Echo Base Dispatch—a brief transmission from here to wherever you are—where I share what I’m working on, what I’m wrestling with, and the lessons I’m learning along the way.
–Jason
Dolly Parton said, “Find out who you are. And do it on purpose.”
I love this quote. I think it’s the key to success in life, and I believe it should be the objective of every parent, teacher, coach, boss, and counselor of any kind: to help a person find out who they are, and then encourage them to do it on purpose.
Frankly, that’s our family’s entire homeschooling philosophy in a nutshell. Our job isn’t to manufacture our kids into something impressive. It’s to help them discover who God made them to be.
I love the idea that you spend the first part of your life figuring out what cards you’ve been dealt. You need to spend the rest of your life not wishing for someone else’s hand, but to play your own cards well.
This process takes time. You have to do a lot of exploring and experimenting to discover what lights you up and uncover your particular strengths and weaknesses.
It’s made all the more difficult by an overemphasis on fitting in and measuring up. Much of life makes us feel deficient for what we’re not:
In school, we receive poor grades in subjects we aren’t gifted in.
At work, we keep getting promoted until we land in a job we’re not particularly good at.
In front of the mirror, our so-called flaws and imperfections monopolize our attention.
Many of us feel broken.
But what if the truth is that we aren’t broken at all?
What if we’re just trying to do something we weren’t designed for?
My friend tells a story about when her nephew was about three years old. The boy handed her father a white crayon and said, “Fix it, Grandpa!” Grandpa already had a solid reputation for toy repair, so he chuckled, slipped the crayon into his pocket, and took it home.
The next time he visited, Grandpa returned the crayon. But this time, he placed a sheet of colored construction paper in front of the boy.
“I fixed it.”
The boy tried the crayon.
His eyes sparkled with wonder.
Of course, Grandpa hadn’t done anything to the crayon.
It wasn’t broken.
It had simply been given the opportunity to finally do what it was made to do.
Many of us are just white crayons on white paper.
Maybe we don’t need to be fixed.
Maybe we just need a different piece of paper —
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