A little girl with a lot of heart

I think I have made my penchant for The Today Show clear before, especially my admiration of the wonderful Mr. Matt Lauer, so it should come as no surprise to any of you that I have The Today Show on in the background as I get ready every morning. Usually, I listen to stories about crime and wars going on in our country and other countries, tales of economic downfall, and of course, politics. However, yesterday morning, I was pleased to hear an actually uplifting story and one that brightened my morning before I left the house. It was a story about a young artist, Autumn de Forest, and her love of art and painting.

I encourage you to go to The Today Show’s site and read the interview and watch the video from the show because this girl is truly an inspiration. This young girl is doing what all of us really want to do. She is following her passion and throwing herself completely into something she loves. It happens to be something she is quite good at as well, as her paintings have sold for up to $250,000 at art auctions. These paintings you have to check out for yourself, because they truly are amazing.

What impressed me even more is that this nine year old girl has a good head on her shoulders and is extremely humble. When asked by Matt what she would use money from her paintings for she said this: “I love my paintings, but I’m not the bragger of my paintings,” she said. “If someone is going to pay a huge amount of money to buy my painting and if they know I’m going to spend it to buy a bunch of Barbie dolls, they know you’re going to waste your money on something not important. But people know the money is going into my education, maybe even art school.”

I don’t know about all of you readers out there, but I find as an adult, we are oftentimes so pressured to work hard to make ends meet at our jobs that we forget our passions and forget to do what it is that we love. We get up in the morning, go to work and work all day, and then crash when we get home. We either don’t have time for hobbies, or we don’t think we can do it anymore because so much time has passed since when we did them. This happened to me pretty quickly after law school, and it’s a problem I’m trying to fix.

For those of you who have seen the movie Mr. Deeds, in the end of the movie, when making a huge speech to sway shareholders not to sell the company, the main character “Deeds” asks individual shareholders what it is they wanted to be when they grew up. He got answers like a doctor, a firefighter, a clown, etc., and these people realized that they had lost sight that life is not just a struggle to make money and become richer. Life is about doing what you love and what makes you happy.

I realize this girl is only nine, and her life will change drastically as the years go by, I’m sure. I know that I am not the same little girl I was when I was that age, but I also wasn’t as motivated and focused as Autumn. My hope for her is that she keeps this passion alive and doesn’t let life or others get in her way. I hope that she continues to do what she loves just because she loves it, not because it will make her more money.

When asked how often she paints, Autumn said this: “I do it every day. I try to do as much as I can…I do my best.”

Passion is one of the reasons why I have gotten back to writing. Sure, I’m not making any money from it right now, and yes, while it would be great in the future, I don’t want money to be the only reason why I do it. I want to keep writing because I love to write, because it’s something that makes me happy every day. That’s all any of us could ask for.

I hope that you all can be as inspired as I was by this young girl and her immense talent.