Keyword: teal

  • Rodeo Dolphin

    “Rodeo Dolphin” by Jason Kotecki. 20 x 20. Oil on canvas.
    Original is available. 🔴 Shop this art!

    This painting is a little bit crazy.

    Some people will be quick to point out that cowboys don’t ride dolphins. They’ll scoff that dolphins don’t belong in the sky. They’ll demand an explanation about the meaning of it all.

    Those were the same kind of people who scoffed at the Wright Brothers for having the audacity of thinking they could build a flying machine. Humans can’t fly, they said. They don’t belong in the sky, they scoffed. They demanded an explanation for why these two, with no college education, no formal technical training, no experience working with anyone other than themselves, no friends in high places, no financial backers, no government subsidies, and little money of their own, would ever think they could achieve such an absurdity?

    To be fair, for more than fifty years, many others before them served as a source of comic relief, mocked and ridiculed in the press for their delusions of grandeur and “childish” flying machines.

    Somehow, and to our benefit, this did not deter Wilbur and Orville Wright.

    History is filled with people criticized for being crazy.

    But, as it’s been said, monuments are not built for critics and statues are not dedicated to fault-finders.

    Very often, our dreams appear absurd, especially to others. And especially the big ones.

    A horseless carriage?

    A self-powered flying machine?

    A pocket-sized device you can use to communicate with anyone in the world?

    What will they think of next? A flying car? A colony on Mars? A cure for cancer?

    This reminder is not reserved for the select few who change world history and have statues erected in their honor. I make a living doing what I love from my studio on the shores of Lake Michigan. Trust me, in the early days of our business, when Kim and I were living on a diet largely dependent on Hamburger Helper and couldn’t afford to run our air conditioning during the hot summer, every bit of my current life seemed far-fetched, to say the least.

    Of course, you can’t count on every dream coming true.

    But you can count on somebody calling you crazy for dreaming it.

    That’s ok.

    Keep dreaming anyway.

    The best dreams start out a little crazy.

  • Like a Boss

    “Like a Boss” by Jason Kotecki. 16 x 20. Oil on canvas.
    Original is SOLD 🔴 Shop this art!

    Life can feel like a high-wire act. You’re doing your best to juggle everything on your plate: your job, your family, your finances, and just when you think everything is going pretty well, you glance down and see someone whose yard looks way better than yours. How do they get those flowers to flourish like that?

    Or someone’s kids who are in way more activities than yours. Will my kids be less attractive to colleges? 

    Or someone who just drove up in their new car. Should I be thinking about getting a better job?

    For instance, my neighbor cuts his grass every six minutes. Okay, maybe it only seems like that. It’s probably more like sixteen. The point is, a perfect lawn is apparently important to him. I’m not here to judge, except I often do judge…myself. 

    Our lawn usually looks pretty shaggy compared to his, especially if it’s been more than a week since we cut our grass. And the fact that we hire that out makes me self-conscious. Does he think I’m less of a man because I don’t cut my own grass? Does he think we think we’re better than him because we hire someone to do it for us? Do the neighbors see our weak landscaping game and think our house is bringing down the home values in the neighborhood? It’s kind of embarrassing to say all this out loud, because I have no reason at all to think anyone is thinking any of this, but it does pop into my head when I lose focus on what matters to me.

    I appreciate a nice lawn, but I value the extra time to spend with my family. One of the reasons I work so hard on my business is so I can spend more time doing what I love and pay someone else to do the things I hate.

    Please understand that I’m not saying my way is the best one. After all, my neighbor friend is retired with kids who are grown. He has a lot more time to spend on keeping up his lawn. For all I know, it might be a therapeutic escape for him. It’s like comparing apples and mangosteens. Which is completely my point.

    Television and magazines are filled with examples of people who seem to have it all together. They gracefully glide through life as the perfect mom, perfect wife, and perfect employee.

    It’s all a facade. We don’t ever know the whole story, whether it’s the celebrity with the flawless teeth or the neighbor right next door. We all have different priorities and are fighting different battles (which often stay hidden from the camera’s lens or our surface-level observations).

    I’m not here to tell you what’s important to you. I’m just here to remind you that it can’t ALL be. 

    The people who are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to keep up with an impossible standard of balancing everything perfectly, are making a huge mistake. Not only is such a standard impossible to attain, but they’re also allowing the busyness to distract them from what’s most important. 

    The people who are doing life right are the ones who are mindful of what kind of life they want to live and are focused on that.

    How do you tackle life like a boss? 

    Stay focused on what’s most important to you. Ignore the rest.

  • Follow No Maps

    “Follow No Maps” by Jason Kotecki. Digital art.
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    Best practices are for the birds.

    Remember when your mom asked you if you’d jump off a bridge if all your friends did? Nowadays, you could get away with saying “yes” if you explained that jumping off the bridge was a “best practice.”

    Look, I’m all for seeking out wisdom and learning from others who are doing things well. But I’m beginning to see “best practices” morph into a fancy way of saying, “tell me what to do so I don’t have to think.” It’s become just as much a way of hiding as it is a tool for improvement. After all, no one ever got fired for following a best practice.

    Best practices are the equivalent of paint-by-numbers: “Color these sections exactly the way we tell you and you’ll end up with a pretty picture that looks exactly like this.”

    As I’m fond of saying, they don’t hang paint-by-numbers in the Louvre.

    Innovation is a sexy buzzword these days. Everyone wants to be seen as innovative. But you can’t be innovative if you’re busy following best practices. Doing the same thing as everyone else is the opposite of innovation.

    If you really want to be innovative, you have to find better practices. And the only way to do that is to try doing something different. Of course, it might not work. But…what if it does?

    You can follow best practices or you can be innovative, but you can’t do both.

    The head fake here is that this little rant seems to be all about business, but it’s really not.

    It’s about life. The map is there for you if you want it. You can parent your kids, spend your free time, navigate your education, plan your wedding, celebrate holidays, run your campaign, decorate your home, or manage your finances according to “best practices.” If you want your life to look like everyone else’s, by all means, look around, watch what everyone else is doing, and do that. Frankly, that’s actually what most people want.

    But if you are reading this, I suspect you want something more than for your life to look like a boring old paint-by-number that looks exactly like everyone else’s. In order to do that, you have to ignore the map and head off for parts unknown. That’s what “escaping adulthood” is all about.

    The scary part is not that you don’t know where to head, because deep down, you actually do.

    Deciding to start; that’s the scary part. It’s also the beginning of a great adventure.

  • Open Gate

    “Open Gate” by Jason Kotecki. Digital.
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    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.

    We’re just trying to get back home.