I Won't Do Anything For My Kids

We say it all the time.

I’ll do anything for my kids.

But we don’t.

We lie. 

To them, to our friends, to ourselves.

Do you hate me yet?

I buy too much. I spend too much. I’m negative too much. I eat too much. I drink too much. I smoke too much. I yell too much. I don’t listen too much. I’m lazy too much. I complain too much. I don’t care too much. I ignore them too much. I look at my phone too much. I look at my phone too much. I look at my phone too much. I don’t look at them too much. I’m not who I’m meant to be too much. I’m not who I want them to be too much. I live in the sidelines too much. I don’t do anything for my goals too much. I am irresponsible too much. I waste money too much. I don’t exercise too much. My diet starts tomorrow too much. I dream and don’t act too much. I don’t do what I know I should do too much. I don’t kiss them too much. I don’t look in their eyes when they talk to me too much. I do as I say not as I do too much. I don’t spend time with them too much. I’m depressed too much. I fight too much. I don’t see the love too much. I don’t help them too much. I look at my phone too much. But it’s not my fault too much. 

Now they’re just like me too much.

3 Goals of the I Love You Project

Parents, listen up!

ONE…Take more photos of your kids. Real photos.

TWO…Write to your kids. So they will remember you.

THREE…Spend more time with your kids. Put down the phone, the broom and the lawnmower. You will thank me later.

Birth of the I Love You Project

I was helping my daughter put her laundry away when I saw it.

He was visiting us one more time before he would die.

His secret.

I didn’t even know she took a picture of my father while he was here.

I held it in my hand.

Stella hugged me crying too.

“I miss Grandpa.”

I have spent most of my life trying to become the “world’s best photographer taking the world’s best photographs”.

Now I stood humbled from a photo taken by a child.

It occurred to me that when I’m on my own deathbed, the only photographs I want are of them.

The words I want them to remember are, “I love you.”

That’s how the project began.

The best photographs in the world are the ones of who you love.

The best photographer in the world is you, when you take them.

And write to them.

Because they might forget.

Birth of the You Are Mona Lisa Project

I didn’t have that one ah-ha moment that you often hear about. It was many little moments that slowly came together one the years. Years purely because of my own self doubt as a photographer and human being.

I do remember the first moment. I had just gotten back from the Middle East. Our first child, Stella, was born a few days later. I almost missed it. Three months later, my military career took me to Texas. There I missed four months of her life. I hated myself for it. I remember the conversation with my father and how I was complaining when he said “show me the person pointing the gun at your head for being in the military.”

That truth shot through my heart like a heat seeking missile. He was right. It was my fault. 

I’m a religious man when things are going bad. So I grabbed the hotel Bible in the nightstand and did that whole show me a sign on whatever page I open up to God thing. I wasn’t expecting it to work.

My eyes went right to a verse that talked about being two people, about knowing what we should, who we should be. But doing and being the opposite. I try not to cry in public so good thing I was alone. 

I didn’t get it. I knew the things I should be doing. I knew who I wanted to be. But I hadn’t lifted a finger to accomplish it. Was I just lazy, scared, too comfortable, or in desperate need for a Tony Robbins self help book?

In time I saw that we are all two people. The person we are that moment and the person we want to be, were born to be. The further those two people are apart, the worse life is. The closer they are, the better life is. 

Knowing this and accepting fault has given me opportunities to change. To move closer to that person I know I can be. BTW, when life is going good its all me, I’m awesome, no God needed. 

Which led me to my first self proclaimed I’m a genius photographer idea, “What if I can photograph that second person?”

And slowly, for far too much time, this became the first moment of the “You Are Mona Lisa” Project.