I was cradling my broken iPad. The screen had been shattered by flying off the roof of my car going 45 mph.

I had gotten distracted. I thought it would be cool to throw a snowball, and chucked it so hard I broke my watch off my wrist (kind of made me proud in a weird way). When the watch flew into the snowbank, I dropped my iPad on the top of my car and forgot about it until I saw it fluttering through the air in the rear view mirror.

As artists, we make this mistake in our careers all the time. Instead of slowing things down and carefully planning our actions, we react emotionally (diving into the snow bank for a broken watch), and make things worse. When we jump to conclusions or make an impulsive fast choice, we almost never make the right decision.

I wish the smashing of a $300 iPad was the most expensive lesson I’ve ever had on this fault of mine. But I’ve sabotaged my career, relationships, and even my walk with God so many times with this same predictable mistake. Maybe gathering up the broken pieces of an iPad screen will finally drive home that I need to take a deep breath and think before I act.