Life Is Like A Gamble; You Only Get Back What You Put In
I once read a quote on Twitter that resonated with me more deeply than I even understand at the time. The quote was about life and understanding the balance in it, the universe’s equilibrium, for my celestial trailblazers. “Like a heartbeat, life is nothing without highs and lows”. Thinking about this analogy may seem simple because in a literal sense your heartbeat has to rise and fall in correlation to your breath. But if you look at the quote metaphorically, learning how to withstand your low moments and how to not crash in your highest, is one of the biggest obstacles for humans as emotional as we are. The natural reaction to sadness is to dwell in it, people often live in these places for years at a time; the same goes for people experiencing their life’s “win streak”, they allow the confidence from their success to allow them to become reckless which is often followed by a crash. Examples of both extremes lie on both sides, which, in my opinion, is why the majority of the people we know throughout life choose to remain safe and not take too many risks; fear of hitting an extreme without honing in on the ability to withstand it. Unfortunately, as creatives, we often allow the fears and opinions of those afraid to risk to shape our way of thinking.
Since I was young, it has always been my natural inclination to rebel and go “against the grain”. For years my parents, teachers, coaches, administrators worked hard making attempts to curb that inclination with discipline to no avail. As I look back, it was likely due to my feeling of discomfort with the standard we are all taught to go along with. A few positives came as a result of this personal realization: I realized that it helped to eliminate any inkling of having a fear of missing out and I also realized that it allowed me to find comfort in taking risks that challenged the status quo.
Fast forwarding to today, I have taken what some see as ‘too large of a risk to commit to’; I have fully committed my life to following my passion for photography. In the most primal sense, entrepreneurship is human survival in 21st Century society. We hunt for what we eat and repeat that cycle endlessly, where sometimes the safe play can hurt you in the end. And more so as creatives, we constantly exist in a space where there are no guarantees but with that level of uncertainty can also bring a feeling of power, if we tap into it properly.
Art, in itself, requires risk; putting your thoughts and emotions on a pedestal through your artistic expression isn’t an easy task. Creating requires a sense of freeness of expression that can be hard to bear but the risk of revealing yourself is worth it when you receive the accolades from it. Photography has, quite literally, changed my life for the better. I have seen things, walked towns, met people that I would have never met. I have experienced days and lived nights that I will never forget. My understanding of the world and my place in it has significantly increased with every lift off from the tarmac. As you may assume, photography has influenced the way I see the world and I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunities that I have been afforded. I was once upset at how I viewed my current position in life as stagnant but taking a moment to ‘smell the roses’ is the balance to the risks that we take. We are further along than we were when we started, we have learned more and gained more wisdom from our experiences. Learning to take those lessons and apply them, never forgetting the place from which we started, is the key.
