Keyword: possibility

  • Beyond the Bathtub

    “Beyond the Bathtub” by Jason Kotecki. 20 x 20. Oil on canvas.
    Original is available 🟢 Shop this art!

    I could have stayed in the bathtub.

    Way back when, after completing my schooling and earning a degree, the safe path was waiting for me. A decent job in my hometown. It wasn’t particularly exciting, but it was close enough to what I went to school for that I could rationalize it as making sense. I could have taken the job, gotten married, bought a house, and started collecting benefits.

    It was tempting, and by most standards, the smart thing to do. The only problem is that I knew exactly what life in the bathtub would look like for the rest of my life.

    I may have been shy and quiet, but I grew up observing people who decided to stay in the bathtub. Whether they rationalized it as a smart choice or insisted they didn’t have any others, I could always sense a certain sadness, simmering just below the surface. 

    Life outside the bathtub is fraught.

    The ocean is vast. The edges disappear as the shoreline fades from view. The waves toss us around until we’re seasick. At times it feels like we’ll drown—or be swallowed by something much bigger than ourselves. The current carries us in directions we never would have chosen. It’s disorienting. Terrifying. Unpredictable.

    Of course we prefer to remain in an environment we can control! 

    The problem is that it’s not much of a life. 

    The bathtub is safe, controlled, and predictable. But it’s also small. Constricting. Eventually the what-ifs become impossible to ignore. What’s outside these walls? What am I truly capable of? Where might I go if I ventured beyond the edge of what I can see?

    I was the kid my relatives called a scaredy-cat. Honestly, not much has changed. I’ve never become especially brave or outgoing.

    I just knew there was life beyond the bathtub.

    Although I’m just a tiny rubber duck, I sensed I was made for a bigger shore, farther away than I could get to on my own.

    So I put my trust in the One who made the water, the waves, and the wind.

    That choice came with no certainty, no safety, and no benefits package. There were seasons when I felt lost at sea. Driftless. Doubtful. Overwhelmed. Afraid.

    You know what? I still feel that way sometimes. There are always temptations to pull into a safe harbor somewhere and settle down. To quit while I’m ahead.

    But I can’t go back now.

    Since giving my life to the Creator of the ocean, I’ve seen things, accomplished things, and experienced things I never would have known had I stayed in the bathtub. I’ve been swept up in an adventure that’s been wonderful, beautiful, and breathtaking.

    The decision isn’t to become adventurous.

    The decision is to leave the bathtub.

    Everything else follows.

    We’re destined for a life beyond the bathtub. 

    Of course it isn’t safe. But it is good.

    Is it time for you to experience what life is like beyond the bathtub?

    process

  • Penguin Possible

    “Penguin Possible” by Jason Kotecki. Digital.
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    “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.”