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We’re obsessed with endings in the American culture.
From the time we start school we are rewarded with endings and we’re measured by analytics.
If you’re good for the week you get a candy, good for the month a pizza party, good for the semester a field trip, and good for the year move onto the next grade with honors.
The issue with this is it leaves us feeling unsatisfied when the benchmarks in our life are planned out by someone else, and then there is no one there to give a jolly rancher when we get there.
I don’t think accomplishments are endings contrary to everything I have ever learned in school.
I didn’t start photography to be anything, to win anything to accomplish anything other than having the memories saved so I could revisit my first study abroad experience.
What I found was that once I learned how to change the settings on my camera I became obsessed at bringing it with me on all of my walks around Sydney.
I was taking photos almost everyday and bring my camera with me to the bars on weekends.
I saw that sending my friends made them happy and it made me happy as well.
It was addicting and I quickly became obsessed.
Flash forward to today I still don’t think there is a final destination I want to reach in photography. Yeah I would love more money and more trips but even if I made 20 million dollars next year I wouldn’t retire from taking photos go to a resort and be a gluttonous pig for the rest of my life.
I’d wake up not have to worry about money and I’d walk around and shoot for hours on end.
That’s what makes me happy in life.
I think a lot of people obsess over that ending and that level of achievement because it is what we are told that we need to do as we get older. I think what we’ll find is that the people that can achieve that 20 million dollar dream life will get into retirement only to be bored because of how obsessed they were with the process for so many years.
Yeah the ending and achievement model might work for some people but it does not work for me.
I need to lose myself in a process consistently.
What is your process?
