Downtown Palo Alto, California is home to a delightful series of street paintings that I recently discovered. Pictured above is the first one I noticed – a man carrying a garbage can with an alien inside. It’s located on an unassuming wall near a street corner. After observing similar paintings around town, I asked a few people about the story behind them. As it happened, the people I asked didn’t know anything more than I did.

The next step in finding more information was obvious: I should Google the paintings. But I held off. I even stopped asking people about them. Why? I realized that part of the fun of the paintings was the surprise and delight that coincides with unexpected discovery. The paintings provide a beautiful and whimsical addition to the ordinary. Not knowing where they came from or where I might see another added to the sense of fun.

As it turns out, the artist who painted the murals, Greg Brown, felt the same way:

I call it the Palo Alto Pedestrian Series because it’s actually geared toward people being on foot, walking around, and discovering these things. People would ask me – they’d say, “I’m coming into town and want to take some friends around. Can you tell me where all these things are, and we’ll drive them around? And I said, “No, don’t do that. That’s not the way to see them. Just go downtown and see how many you stumble upon.” ¹

It is interesting to know the way I chose to view the paintings aligned with the artist’s original intentions. And it brings home a good point. Good art can be for no other reason than to have fun and put a smile on someone’s face – especially when it’s unexpected.

Feelings, thoughts, and desires that slowly build over a long period of time and culminate in radical change are difficult to describe.

However, legitimate desires are marked over time. They persist rather than fade. Tastes leave you hungry for more. Foreseen difficulty fails to intimate. Gradually and steadily, they grow until they cannot be ignored.

Waiting for fulfillment is difficult. Deep desires don’t come to pass overnight. Day after day, no movement is observed. Days turn into months turn into a year. Suddenly a shift occurs. Standing in the middle of fruition, the past doesn’t seem so long.

For me, personally, the shift has occurred, foreshadowed by a realization. I am moving to New York City to work as a Product Designer for Palantir.

Exactly one year ago, I sojourned in a monastery in Kentucky for a weekend of silence, prayer, and meditation. Why? I had many questions about work and wanted answers. Was I in the right line of work (digital design)? Was it really what I wanted to be doing? Should I pursue something else? I tried not to get my hopes up that I would return with answers.

While there, I read Tim Keller’s Every Good Endeavor. In it, he distills the Biblical view of work. Two key points stood out and helped guide my thoughts:

1. View yourself as a garden to be cultivated.

Of the talents and gifts that you’ve been given, which have the most potential to be developed? For example, I can play the piano well, but is my gifting such that I could develop enough to play professionally? In my case, probably not. My most potential-laden gift is probably design. I should do my best to cultivate and develop it.

2. View work as a way to help other people.

Work is the primary way in which we serve others. What are the implications? Keller makes it practical: If you have a choice between a job that helps more people but pays less money and a job that pays more money but helps less people, you should seriously consider taking the job that helps more people.

Meditating on these two ideas brought me to a realization: Design is my foremost gifting, and I should pursue design work that truly helps other people.

Suddenly, I had clarity. Design in the digital space not only afforded me the opportunity to develop my skills the most, but to impact the most people. I could now take steps in the right direction. All that was left was to put one foot in front of the other.

Big transitions in life don’t happen every day: graduating, starting a new job, getting married, having a child, moving, etc. Instead, most days are comprised of ordinary moments: repeating the same routines, habits, and tasks over and over. The repetition makes every day feel like every day. All the mundane details fade from memory.

Transition points are not normal days. When life is disrupted, ordinary details become new again. Traveling the same route to work each day, we stop noticing the scenery. On a new route to work, however, the scenery becomes alive and interesting once again. This is the special, unusual effect of transition points: the power to notice, reexamine, and reevaluate the details of life.

As reported two years ago, Target (and other retailers) do their best to take advantage of the unique nature of transition points:

There are, however, some brief periods in a person’s life when old routines fall apart and buying habits are suddenly in flux. One of those moments — the moment, really — is right around the birth of a child, when parents are exhausted and overwhelmed and their shopping patterns and brand loyalties are up for grabs.

Routinized shopping patterns and brand loyalties are only the tip of the iceberg. Amidst the disruption of day-to-day routines, decisions that were once on auto-pilot are overridden by thoughtful control. Choices are reevaluated. Routines are changed.

Today marks one such transition for me personally. My role as a Visual Designer for HGTV has come to an end. Monday marks the beginning of a new adventure (details soon).

It is an exciting time – a transition point. Though all is seemingly in flux, reinvention and renewal awaits. Taking notice anew of everyday details makes each day longer and more vibrant.

Ultimately, transition is adventure – bidding farewell to the familiar and welcoming the unknown. Though difficult, it is rewarding. The lows can sink lower, but the highs soar higher.

Focus on each new day, don’t worry about tomorrow, soak in the details, and move forward one step at a time. Onward.

Consider the following quotation from the Psalms:

As for man, his days are like grass;
    he flourishes like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
    and its place knows it no more.

And the following teaching from Jesus:

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Meditate on how these two ideas come together:

To you who boast tomorrow’s gain
Tell me what is your life
A mist that vanishes at dawn
All glory be to Christ!

Plans – we make them for a future we can’t control. Plans are necessary and good, but they often become a source of false security. We feel secure when we have a plan. But a plan is not a promise of what tomorrow will bring.

It’s tempting to boast in “tomorrow’s gain.” Yet the fallacy of doing so becomes clear when circumstances are in flux. The true nature of a plan is revealed: uncertainty. A plan is an educated guess, not a guarantee.

To look to the future with certainty is, in a word, foolish. To accept this truth is to be humbled, acknowledging the limits of human knowledge. We desire to know the future but are forced to look outside of ourselves to seek it.

What plans have you made recently?

A year ago, I wrote the words “Edit Ruthlessly” on the chalkboard wall in our house. These two words have become an informal family motto, challenging us to live more simply.

The idea came after watching Grant Hill’s 5-minute TED talk: Less stuff, more happiness. Hill makes a compelling case for the freedom afforded by having less (admittedly, a first-world problem). His first point of advice? Edit ruthlessly:

We’ve got to cut the extraneous out of our lives and stem the inflow.

This process is slow and unending. Like any other discipline, simplicity gradually takes root as new habits are formed. Over time, store shelves and “buy now” buttons become less and less alluring. Purchases are made with more and more discernment.

Two other sources of inspiration have been helpful. The first, The Minimalist Mom, challenges the cultural norms of stuff in the context of family and children. The other, Moving Upstairs, is an essay by Jack Cheng that outlines a helpful framework for evaluating what stuff is truly useful.

Living with words has power. Passing the chalkboard wall everyday, both consciously and unconsciously, gave resolution to our goals. They are words that have yet to be erased.

A lot of companies and brands talk about good service (putting the customer first, adding delight, etc). Unfortunately, real-life experiences often fall far short of marketed promises. The truth is: if your service is great, you won’t need to talk about it. Your customers will.

I recently experienced truly great service. I stepped into an unfamiliar coffee shop, failed to notice the ordering instructions, and stood in the wrong line. I should have felt foolish and embarrassed, but the first employee I spoke with didn’t let me. He rearranged the ordering process to accommodate my mistake, as if I was correct all along. A second employee who finished my order acted the same. They didn’t just make me coffee. They helped me have a good day.

Such experiences of good service are powerful. They linger in your memory. You share them with your friends and anyone who will listen. After all, I’m still thinking, and now writing, about my experience. That’s the best advertising (branding, etc) money can’t buy.