October 01, 2011 at 05:16PM from Instagram: http://instagr.am/p/Oy5aP/
Author / Jim Cota
How does your garden grow?
Abby & Grace
You plant a garden. Your flowers don’t grow.
You don’t criticize and yell at your flowers.
You water, fertilize, and nurture them… and your garden grows.
Think about your family, friends, and co-workers.
When you find them not doing what they’re supposed to do, or not doing it in a way you want it done, what do you do? Do you criticize them?
Or do you teach, nurture, and support them?
To Do Today: Don’t criticize others. Try to understand what they need to be successful and then provide it.
– Friar Telly, II
The trouble with dogs…
Image via Wikipedia
Louis CK was on Conan recently discussing the problem with dogs. “Parenting,” he says, “gets easier. I had a dog once, and that doesn’t get easier. It’s harder having a dog because children develop and dogs just stay dumb.”
He then goes on to tell the following story about his own dog and an unfortunate incident involving dark chocolate and hydrogen peroxide. The story is funny in it’s own right, but his impression of his dog (well, really any dog) is so dead on it’s hysterical.
Enjoy:
Sometimes you just have to stop to smell…
I took Grace to the restroom at the ballpark today and then stood around waiting for her for several minutes. She finally came out and said, “Sorry that took so long, Dad.”
“It’s okay, honey,” I replied, “but why did it take so long?”
She smiled and said, “The smell of the soap.”
A great idea + creative masses = amazing results
Dear Photograph, Our wedding was the sweetest day, just like Grandma's chocolate." - Onno
Think of all the great creative minds and the world’s best ideas, and you might come away thinking that creative genius is found by an individual toiling away alone. I think this can happen occasionally, but not often. Beyond that, the ideas may be great, but they could have been improved by having other input. It seems apparent that one person can only take an idea so far until it reaches is maximum potential. At that point, better results can be found by bringing in other creative types to add their own contributions. It’s in this secondary stage that truly beautiful and profound things begin to happen.
Here’s an example: Dear Photograph. The idea is imaginative yet simple: take a new photo of an old photo and write a caption that captures your thoughts about the moment. It’s a nice idea. But when this idea gets unleashed to the creative masses, amazing things begin happening.
There’s a photograph a cancer survivor Eric Richter and his daughter with the caption “Her love was my chemo.” There’s the photograph of a man looking down at the photo of he and his wife on a bench: “Thank you for everything we had.” Or the photo of of a father and two kids standing in a hardscrabble yard: “We had nothing, but you gave me everything.” Or two kids sitting together on a Lazy Boy chair: “Dear Photograph, I wish I treated you better when we were in high school.”
The site is only about a month old and displays less that 50 photos. They are poignant, heartfelt, and beautiful in their ability to uniquely capture two distinct moments at once. You can be sure that this will be a hit. It’s nearly impossible to ignore, and in just a few minutes, you’ll have ideas of your own to share. And I hope you do; I can’t wait to see them.
Go visit Dear Photograph right now. Let me know what you think.