Few are the first to recognize innovation.

More than 200 million people have visited the Eiffel tower since its construction began in 1887.  But at it’s selection as the centerpiece of the Paris Exposition, there was a huge storm of vitriol, mockery and lawsuits.

To get it built, Gustave Eiffel had to fend off critics. He even had to commit to promise disassemble it in 20 years. From the Wall Street Journal, ‘Odious Column’ of Metal…

Even as Eiffel was breaking ground by the Seine River in February 1887, 47 of France’s greatest names decried in a letter to Le Temps the “odious column of bolted metal.” What person of good taste, this flock of intellectuals asked, could endure the thought of this “dizzily ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a black and gigantic factory chimney, crushing [all] beneath its barbarous mass”? The revered painters Ernest Meissonier and William-Adolphe Bouguereau, writers Guy de Maupassant and Alexandre Dumas fils, composer Charles Gounod and architect Charles Garnier all signed this epistolary call to arms, stating that “the Eiffel Tower, which even commercial America would not have, is without a doubt the dishonor of Paris.”

Eiffel’s response to the criticism…

‘And I submit that the curves of [the tower's] four piers as produced by our calculations, rising from an enormous base and narrowing toward the top, will give a great impression of strength and beauty.’ Eiffel the ardent republican wondered why his nay-saying compatriots could not see the glory. France, a lone republic surrounded by monarchies, was building “the tallest edifice ever raised by man,” a completely original industrial-strength monument made possible by new knowledge and technologies, a colossal modern wonder of the world designed to draw vast throngs to France’s Exposition Universelle.

I will have a later posting that lists products and projects that few understand as having any practical purpose or future. Can you think of any?

But then I thought different.

Out the window, I saw green buds on the trees! Everywhere. New words came flooding in… It’s springtime! School will be out soon and I have a whole three months of summer ahead to ride bikes, build forts and play army! Neato’.

Well, I’m not ten years old anymore. But that memory is real. The original emotion is wired to those green buds, and I let the warm emotions of a carefree life flow through me, letting them silencing the incessant voices shouting performance, worry, fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Man, that’s a good vibe. Let’s do some more of that!

I started thanking God for the abundance God has provided; the things money cannot buy. I started with my wonderful wife, our four beautiful girls, life in America, our health. My freedom to write and create. On and on they go. I really felt different. Happy! All because I was thinking different. It took less than a minute. The bible addresses this well…

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:8-9

Think good thoughts. The chatter slows. Be happy.

PS – I took these photos of my buddy John Ellis when we were kids back in the early 1960s. We had some great summers together. He was crazy.