Every Day is a Canvas…
Craig Sager was best known as the colorfully-dressed, energetic character who worked as an NBA sideline reporter on TBS. He always wore wildly bright, gaudy blazers and had a way of interviewing players and coaches that felt like they were old buddies just having a chat about sports. In April 2014, Sager was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. He would eventually undergo three bone-marrow transplants as he fought for his life. On July 13, 2016, Sager received the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the 2016 ESPY Awards for his show of courage while battling cancer. In a moving acceptance speech, Sager said something that would stick with me to this day and has since become my motto. In speaking about his battle with cancer, which he would ultimately and unfortunately lose five months later, he stated,
“If I’ve learned anything through all of this, it’s that each and every day is a canvas waiting to be painted – an opportunity for love, for fun, for living, for learning.”
As someone who creates every day for a living, Sager’s statement is both literal and figurative but also prolific in my opinion. Whether you are talking about creating something new every day or you are simply looking at every day as a new opportunity to do something positive, I believe Craig Sager’s statement is so relevant to so many. I consider myself someone who thrives on inspiration and is always looking for ways to foster creativity and positivity in others. It is for this reason that I have renamed and rebranded the Spin350 Instagram page as @everydayisacanvas. Beyond the page name simply being different, the newly inspired @everydayisacanvas Instagram page is my home base for generating and sharing positivity and creating a sense of community in addition to sharing my on-going design work. My goal is to re-approach how Instagram is traditionally utilized as a popularity platform that focuses on vanity metrics and to focus more on inspiring creativity and positivity. At the same time, I want to get the word out about great clients and partners that are aligned with that mission. This decision coincidentally comes at a time when Instagram is testing out hiding “like” counts so that people can focus more on content rather than metrics — so my timing is great! Because Instagram “likes” will soon be hidden away, it serves as a mental health reminder to check in with yourself, worry less about what’s popular, and focus more on what genuinely interests you.
