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Seeing The Forest For The Happy Trees: Five Life Lessons I Learned From Watching Bob Ross Paint
Like so many other people, The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross has long been a beloved respite for me, first as a child sprawled out on the carpet in my pajamas watching PBS and then later as an adult winding down after a stressful day of work. Ross’ soothing cadence, the gentle scrape of his knife on a canvas — it’s both mesmerizing and deeply relaxing to watch him bring a landscape to life in 30 minutes.
But while some of his sayings like “happy accidents” or “happy little trees” are so well-known you can find them on novelty socks, Ross occasionally turned more serious in his monologuing, giving advice that goes beyond the canvas (and can’t fit on a tee shirt).
Here are five valuable life lessons Ross offered while teaching the joy of painting.
Don’t work a job you hate.
“If it doesn’t make you happy, you’re doing the wrong thing. I spent half my life doing a job that I didn’t really want to do. And now I’m doing what I want to do. And now work is fun.”
Before becoming a painter, Ross was enlisted in the United States Air Force. He rose to the rank of master sergeant and served as first sergeant at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, which is when he saw the snow that…
