The therapy of blogging

No-one who knows me would ever put their hand up and swear I was the person they knew who always wanted to be a writer. In fact i never thought about being a writer because my writing style is simply not anywhere near up to par.

So why do I have a blog then?

Well, all my life I have struggled with anxiety and panic attacks. I work hard, obsess about being a failure, and generally stress myself into a state of being very unwell.

So 54 years, plus a lot of alcohol and antidepressants later, i realized I was simply addressing, and not that well either, the symptoms.

I was never into yoga. Chanting never did it for me. Imagery, I must admit, did help. My music teachers eventually considered suicide.

But, the real shocker came when I realized that i was jealous of creative people. What was even more amazing was that these feelings of jealousy were stronger than my desires to earn more and more money and climb the corporate ladder.

So, with no other options available to me, I thought I'd give blogging a shot. Now, here's the kicker. I don't care how bad my writing is or whether or not people approve of it or not. It feels great to write. It de-stresses me. I am under no pressure to do it, I do it because I love to do it, and it makes me feel creative.

So what, you ask? Well I think that most of us are under so much pressure from so many sources that we no longer know how to be happy.

And sometimes the answer is right in front of us.

Do something you've always wanted to do. Don't do it for anyone except yourself. You might just like it. It might just make you feel happy again. There is certainly no downside to trying is there?

Selling your images for profit (for newbie photographers)

If you are anything like me (hopefully not!) then as a newbie photoghrapher you are spending heaps of time on the Internet exploring all the wondeful ways to go about selling your images (if not for money then certainly for the ego boost).

However, i have come to the disturbing realization that I am spending more time exploring how and where to sell my images than i am actually taking the photos in the first place!!

The reason I am writing about this crazy dilemma is that the Internet has opened up the most wonderful environment by which we can learn every minute of every day.

But eventually selling your images can only happen if you have images for sale.

So, for what it is worth, may I suggest that all us budding, newbie photographers spend most of our time taking as many shots as possible until we have a regular stream of orders for images coming in. Taking saleable images means knowing your camera inside out and practice, practice, and practice.

Eventually when we have a significantly large portfolio then we ought to spend significant time on the very important goal of actually selling our images.

Technology nowadays allows lots of people to take relatively good images with their digital cameras. But like any craft, practice does make perfect. If we think our photos look good now then imagine how good they would look if we took 500 shots a day under all sorts of lighting conditions.

The more shots we take the greater the chance of taking that "one" great one that will sell. When we have enough to sell then lets do just that. In the meantime we continue to take the 500 or more shots a day.

More photos means more "great" images. More "great" images translates to money in the bank. Yes, we need to market our "great" shots, but we have to have "great" shots to market.

Happiness and the need for compromise

My wife and I have been bickering, arguing, generally not getting along for the last 2 weeks.

Embarassement prevents from admitting who, but one of us (ok, not me) decided enough was enough, apologized (not because she was wrong but because she was wise enough to understand the pride counts for very little) and explained that 14 days of pain had passed, 14 days we would never get to live again, 14 days we could have been happy and that perhaps the pain of compromise was far easier to accept and cope with than the pain of trying to see who could win.

As individuals we are proud. We want to be right. We want to be uncompromising. Why should we? I mean, aren't we important and others should dance to our tune.

Well, to put it bluntly, NO. As individuals we are not that important. Our problems, issues, concerns, in the scheme of things, are also not that important. Tomorrow a new day will start regardless of whether we are winning the war with our spouses or not or whether we feel hard done by or not.

Do not get me wrong, compromise is very difficult. We want the other person to bow to our demands (even if we do not know what they are).

But compromise is easy compared to maintaining combativeness. There is no such thing as "winning" a fight with your spouse or loved one. Words not only cause damage but, worse still, they cannot be taken back. Their damage and impact is permanent.

Life is short. Days fly by. It is simply criminal to waste them and not make every effort possible to be happy and to contribute to the happiness of those whom we love.

It does feel great to be happy. It feels even better to make others happy.

I realized that if I had put as much effort into making my wife happy during these past 2 weeks as I had into trying to show her she was wrong and I deserved an apology 2 "once in a lifetime" valuable weeks would not have been wasted.

The songwriter who penned "don't worry, be happy" was wiser than I ever gave him credit for.