A Four Inch Win

Calving Season

4" x 4"

Watercolor

This past week race car driver Denny Hamlin won the closest Daytona 500 by one-hundredth of a second, edging Martin Truax, Jr. by about 4 inches.  Four inches made all the difference between winning and losing!  This is yet again one more example of the power of a little making a huge difference in life.

As I've written in past blogs, the Aesop's Fable of "The Tortoise and the Hare" provides an important truth that slow and steady wins the race.  I have a quote on my kitchen bar by William Dunning that underscores this point:  "Steady work is far more productive than superhuman spurts."  Just keeping at something, chipping away at it in small portions, brings tremendous results over time.  I was encouraged lately in this.  Like most of you, I struggle with trying to find time to do all the things I want to accomplish in a day.  I was challenged to just commit at least 5 minutes to a task but do it every day.  That is pretty powerful as I have a drawing on my easel that is on the way to completion due to a daily 5 minutes work.  Otherwise it would still be in the early stages waiting for that "perfect" big chunk of time to do studio work.  

It is the small things in life that really DO matter.   Little acts of kindness or caring, taking time to repair something minor before it develops into a mess, giving a little more effort than just getting by, cutting back a little on calorie intake, purposing to move your body more in a day, giving that little extra all adds up to major impact in lives.  Be encouraged and keep at it!  Rome wasn't built in a day!

Currently I have five pieces of work on display in the "Winter into Spring Show" at the beautiful Jansen Art Center located here in Lynden, Washington.  

Live bravely and beautifully!