Big Bold Moves

During Indianapolis rush hour traffic one night last week, I saw a guy jump out of his truck in the middle of a torrential storm. He parked hastily on the side of an exit ramp in a major road construction project on Indianapolis’ west side. From my rear view mirror, I saw him run across the ramp toward a set of concrete barriers, preparing to hurl himself over the barricades and into a lane of oncoming traffic that had come to a standstill after a construction sign had blown over and slid across the highway into a lane of moving traffic. In an instant, this man recognized that the sign had the potential to kill a lot of people who were forced to come to a complete stop unexpectedly. He placed himself in harm’s way with the faith that he might just save a few lives if he could remove that sign. Talk about a big, bold move. Most barriers in daily life are far less dangerous than that, don’t you think?

Inspirational Book of the Day: If you can get past the nasty language in Hugh MacLeod’s illustrations, his book Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity is a wonderful treatise on living a creative life. It's written with an edgy attitude and contains a lot of truths grownups need to know about creativity. It's just too bad MacLeod didn't leave his offensive language on his now famous Gaping Void blog. They actually subtracted from some very worthwhile wisdom for people who are pursuing dreams of one kind or another. But that's what's in vogue today.