Quote of the Week …

From The Laid-Off Diaries:

My Quote of the Week … “Choose Joy!”

Spoken by artist David Gerbstadt of Berwyn, Pa.

I’ve had my temp job at a local arts organization for a few weeks now, and I’ve met some talented and creative people, including artist David Gerbstadt, whose quirky personality and paint-splattered clothes attract attention wherever he goes.

While discussing the meaning behind his latest exhibit, Choose Joy, he described how he was riding his bicycle in late December 2007 and was hit and run over by a tractor-trailer truck. When EMTs arrived at the crash scene, David had no pulse, and at the hospital, his heart stopped four times. Banged and bruised, he spent two months recuperating in the hospital. For a time, he slowly sunk into depression. But after hearing doctors repeatedly marvel at his incredible recovery, he began thinking to himself, “I am loved. I matter. And I have a purpose in this world.”

At a time when no one would have blamed him for feeling woe-is-me, he says, he decided to choose joy.

That’s what I’m deciding to do, too.

{To see more of David’s colorful, upbeat artwork, please visit his website, http://www.gerbstadt.net/}