Jen

Yesterday I was driving down the highway and I noticed yet another pink ribbon license plate. It reminded me of my recent trip to the DMV. There are a ton of options for support themed plates. Anything from various causes to groups to view points. In Colorado we also have a “Pioneer” plate, which used to be really difficult to get. You had to be able to prove some heritage associated with Colorado, but now it’s easier to come by.

This got me thinking. We all have various things we support, often times these topics change as our life changes. There are a lot of issues that are important to me. A wide array of issues I support and a multitude of topics I have opinions on. Yet, which are significant enough that I would choose them as the single license plate for my vehicle?

There are definitely more than 5 things in my mind I would plaster as a topic I’d like to voice my view on. This is my top five list for today, in no particular order.

1. Children – Family in general is important to me, but our kids are the ones that need us most. I think far too many people forget our children are born geniuses with a view of the world many of us have lost sight of as we’ve gotten older. Our kids are our teachers as well as we should be theirs. If we stop and listen to them, it’s amazing what they can teach us about love and life. They need us the most, and we need them just as much.

2. Fighting Cancer – many of my family members have been hit one way or another by the ugliness that is cancer. More recently I’ve realized how many people in the world, outside my own little bubble, battled the various forms of this disease. There is so much pain and human destruction from so many things, but cancer seems to be something we should be able to fix. Maybe in a bigger picture I’d say I would like to simply fight disease or pain in general, but for today the label is Cancer. I wish there was more I could do to help.

3. Peace – not to sound like a beauty pageant type answer, but more of a state of mind kind of answer. Everything starts within ourselves, and peace is no exception. On days that I can find and hold on to my own inner peace, I am so much more helpful, kind and giving. I’m more capable of caring and being patient or even stopping to really listen. I need to remember each day to find this place, for the benefit of those around me.

4. Learning – Every day we learn something new, and we should continue to remember and make note of it. I had the opportunity to talk with two little girls yesterday while waiting with my 2 year old daughter at an appointment. One of the girls was pointing out all of the toys and commenting to me that the toys could teach my daughter various things. I replied that we all learn something every day, we just need to stop and think about what it is. The other girl heard this. She stopped, thought for a moment, and started rattling off all the things she’d learned in the last 10 minutes. At my house, we often go around the dinner table listing what we’ve learned for the day.

5. Thankfulness – Thanks is such a huge encompassing topic. I think it’s more about appreciateion. When we are thankful for something, the impact can be enormously wide reaching, and one little act of thanks can have a ripple effect we won’t ever see the end result. If we take the time to stop and show our gratitude for even the smallest of things, it could impact someone else greatly – that act of reaching out without anything more than to say thank you – it is a powerful gift to give.

I bet you thought I was going to say penguins, didn’t you?

I’ve always been a wanderer in many different circles. I like the diversity of meeting and knowing people with different interests and experiences than my own… each a small reflection of something I enjoy. Not to mention, I have a short attention span, so having multiple interests and activities in common with different groups of people keeps me excited in a number of directions. I try to surround myself with a variety of positive vibes so my mind stays on an upbeat most the time.

It’s interesting to me how some of my own focuses are mixed so fabulously with the people I come across.  I’ve met artists that are crazy in love with social networking as much as I am. I am friends with internet marketers that love crafting or photography. There are bloggers that write about business as well as art. Each of these people have an influence on how I focus on my own projects, how I look at my progress and how I plan for tomorrow.

I’ve learned that I can’t just sit here and draw – no matter how much I love it –  if I want to really build a career and reputation around my art. The people I network with, unintentionally remind me every day to not just create art, but shout about it.

All of these influences also have an impact on the art I create as well. My subject matter is my life and common every day aspects of the world around me. I avoid letting the negativity in life influence me, however. I’m always trying to find the positive in situations because focusing on the negative doesn’t do me any good… and besides, who want’s to buy an un-smiley face on a t-shirt? I don’t want that karma landing in my bank account.

Examples of influences that have been good to me

I’ve never been much of a girly girl, but wen I sat down to draw up my impression of a true girl, this Little Diva is what I came up with. At the time I didn’t yet have a daughter… she has turned out to be exactly like this – If it’s girly and pink, she thinks it’s hers. Maybe the illustration was foreshadowing. The influences of the unknown are powerful!

Last year I sent out a twitter that asked “If you were a food, what would you be?”. From that resulted the Smiley Cheeseburger – a Scott Jangro response full of inspiration. There’s some seriousness in that grinning burger, right next to the mayo I think, look carefully.

Sometimes I just draw some silly thoughts that have crossed my mind. This passed out Easter bunny, “The Day After Easter“, was inspired by my husband’s – first time as the Easter bunny dad – Easter experience. I’ve never seen someone so exhausted by egg filling and jellybean hunting.

Another influence for me is food. I have a theory that food is a universal language. Everyone eats so therefore everyone understands food. My explanations of various topics always include food analogies… and so does my art. This is where my happy Nut collection came from.

I can’t always attribute a design to someone or something specific, but it’s always a life experience that has influenced me in one way or another.I always try to keep it upbeat and positive, and if my surroundings get too negative, I switch my environment or train of thought.

I’ve been working on this topic for about 3 weeks now. It originally started when the weather was literally cold and wet and the mood around me was just dreary. At the time I was dealing with a dozen projects, new concepts, the end of the kids’ school year and a couple family members in the hospital. The world felt like it was pouring anxiety and wasn’t letting up long enough for me to breathe.

Today as I write this almost all of the happenings of 3 weeks ago have been resolved, finalized, healed or otherwise. Yet, new issues, tasks, conflicts and worries have taken their places. While one issues seems like it is the top priorty of my universe, as soon and there is a solution, a new issue becomes the top spot.

This is a reality I think is worth noting and finding a new route to manage. There will always be tasks and issues and changes and things to handle. There will always be some kind of “urge” priority while other items take the second seat in my lobby of responsibilities. I think the goal then is to learn to let the stress go entertain itsef and not get in my way.

Part of this process is going to require me to give up control on a few things. If i see an issue I know how to handle, yet it’a not my issue to solve, I need to learn to let it go. I should probably learn to leave it alone, but I can’t seem to keep my mouth closed if I can think of a way to deal with something… I have to at least share my insight. I mean really, what if I don’t share my view and it could have helped someone else? Yet, if I am going to continue to brainstorm with others, I need to learn to no hold on to the ideas – needing them to be acted upon.

I think, for me, another difficult task is going to be learning to look past the choices my children make. My job is to teach them to make good choices, but if I continue to demand they choose the option I would, they won’t learn to make the choice themself. How can I unload my stress and overload if I am holding on to the decisions others make? Sometimes I think I like to torture myself… how insane.

The bottom line, no matter how hard we work nor how organized or prepared we are – there are always going to be situations bigger than we are. There are always going to be things out of our control. If we let go of the things we can’t dictate – leaving them behind, the rain might lighten up a bit. We will be able to see through the clouds to the things we’ve actually been able to give our best effort. Then we’ll move forward feeling more accomplished.

Everything that surrounds us has a great deal to do with what we actually see around us. If we surround ourselves with negative, the positive is that much more difficult to see. When our view is towards a specific direction, our actions tend to follow.

Something that might not bother me today could turn out to be a huge disaster of a situation next week because my perspective has changed. There are so many things that seem urgent at this very moment, yet yesterday the same things might not have been issues I bothered to think about.

Sometimes our views are so focused or narrow, our perspectives can prevent our seeing the real rewards. The view becomes cloudy with detail…

We become so involved in the tiny, often times irrelevant, details that we can completely miss seeing the yumminess of the big picture.

Other times our desires and expectations can skew our perspective, blocking our view of the real potential outcome.

Perspective can also be major factors in determining many of our priorities. Sometimes it’s a vague connection, while other times there’s a very apparent direct link. I can be sitting in the middle of my house after a rough day of kid tornado-ing and the visual chaos makes me feel like my life is in chaos. Another day there might not seem to be a lot of pressing projects or big to-dos to tackle, the piles of laundry and forests of toys at these times don’t cause a problem at all.

My perspective today: Nothing is as tragic or out of control as I think and I should probably – most definitely – work on being more patient and a heck of a lot nicer. Last night, however, the world felt like it was crashing down, I was alone in the middle of it and the best way to feel better was to yell and growl and stomp around. A good night’s sleep with a few weird dreams can change an entire view.

I think the best habit to get into is: pay attention to the view we have. Take tabs on ourselves to make sure our perspectives aren’t so skewed that we’re hurting those around us or missing opportunites we’d succeed with.

What is your perspective about perspective?