Running with Jeff

I remember, more years ago than I care to admit, my buddy Jeff and I were jogging through the streets of Shadyside. Even though it was a LONG time ago, I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a hot summer day, we both were in our early twenties, we probably only weighed 3/4s of what we weigh today, AND we both had a lot more hair. Like most of our conversations back then, the subject of girls soon came up. He told me about some cute girl who just started working in his office. She was the same age as we were, and he mentioned she was taking night classes to continue her education. We both thought that wasn’t a bad idea, but she was taking only one class a semester. I can remember very distinctly we both found that extremely funny. Why take 6 or 7 years to get a degree? Ha! At the time, that was 25% of our life span, for crying out loud. We thought it was hilarious!

Working with Dan

Right around that same time, I was just starting my business as a commercial photographer, and one of my clients was a furniture designer/creative-type by the name of Dan Droz. Dan was a great guy, and I really admired his “big-picture” views on marketing. He became someone I looked up to. When New Years came along, I found a postcard from Dan in my mailbox at home—a simple, rather poor quality, black and white photo of Dan and his wife. They were waving at the camera, standing beneath a couple of road signs that represented the crossroads of two years.

At first, I thought the postcard was a rather cheesy, yet clever way to greet the new year, and didn’t give it a whole lot of thought until I received a similar postcard the following year. And then I received another postcard the next year, the year after that, and every year since. What started out as a cheesy idea became, in my mind at least, an amazingly profound idea. As the years rolled by, I and everyone else who received the postcards were able to see the progression and growth of Dan’s family. Year after year, his kids were born and grew up right before my eyes. Now, after all these years, there exists a cleverly conceived history of Dan’s family for all to see and enjoy. He has created something his family will cherish and pass down from generation to generation, and possibly even historians will study. That’s the power of long-term projects.

Dan Droz's family in 2010

Where is this going?

Dan could have simply gotten 20 years older like the rest of us, and that cute girl who worked with Jeff could have gotten seven years along in her career without any advancement in her education. But they didn’t. They chose to take on a long-term project that meant something to them. Time will pass anyway, no matter what you do, so you might as well do something meaningful.

That’s the secret I want to share with you today. Take on a long-term project—any long-term project you choose. If you’re an illustrator, maybe you do a quick sketch of each of your children, every single week. If you’re a writer, maybe you start an old-fashioned journal and write in it every day. If you’re a photographer, maybe you make a point to photograph a place or person on a regular basis. If you’re an account executive, maybe you…sorry, if you’re an account executive, you’re on your own… ).

The point is, if you act now, you can do something significant that can mean something to other people and yourself down the road. All you really have on this earth is time. God and history will judge you on how you use it. Think about that the next time you sit your butt in front of the TV.

That brings me back to the old Chinese proverb I used as the title of my post. When is the best time to plant a tree? Ten years ago!

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(Read more about Dan’s project) I would also like to mention that I owe Dan Droz many thanks for all the things he’s done for me over the years. His time and ideas were instrumental in helping me to come up with the theme for the Pittsburgh Creative Blog, so if you’ve enjoyed any of the posts you’ve been reading here this last month, you owe Dan some thanks too.

MIchael Ray is a commercial people and food photographer, and web master for the Pittsburgh Creative Directory. You can see his portfolio web site at http://www.michaelray.com