Today is a given, tomorrow is an unknown. In the number of days of ours lives as they come and pass, replacing one after another, I believe we forget this simple fact of life. We become blind to it, oblivious, until something such as a life altering event comes along out of the blue to remind us just how fragile and short life is. As such we should try to make the most of it day by day.
The thing is though, like in the number of days that come to pass one into the next, I believe we become complacent in life, we fall into a monotony of some way of life based loosely on a number of different cultural paradigms, the same way we forget just how temporal our life is— seamlessly. While there is many problems that can come with this, one of the biggest I see is that dreams and passions are often deferred and forgotten while other potential new ones are not pursued or fostered.
The fact of the matter about life is that passions and dreams are vehicles to many different experiences- new places and spaces, meeting new people and making new friends, and so on. Similarly, in tandem with these experiences and beyond, passions and dreams also provide a plethora of benevolent emotions such as continent, excitement, love and happiness. Broadly speaking, I believe dreams and passions are the gateways through which life should be lived and how a meaningful life is lived with whatever amount of time here on Earth we are granted. When you quit living a life centered around such, it makes sense that things ca longer seem right, that something is missing and happiness and place are lacking in your life.
When I reflect back on my life, I am so internally grateful for the role photography has played in my life. It has been a vehicle for me in so many ways more than what I’ve already given in exemplar in this post. If I hadn’t started fostering a simple passion with a cheap $100 Canon Rebel and seen where it could go, my life would not be like what it has become at all. For me, the passion of photography is how I have made the most of every day and because of what I’ve seen along the way and those I’ve met, I’ve become more keenly aware of the temperance of life and the importance of grasping the most out of it. That is why I have adopted a slogan Mike Posner came up with a for a trek across the country— life is now.
Not tomorrow, the next day, a week, month or year later, life is now, today in the present and you do not know how tomorrow will be or what it will have in store. Are you at the point in your life where you can say you are making the most of your life, or do you feel like you’re stuck in the monotony of some pattern of life where your dreams and passions are differed, if they haven’t been forgone entirely? If you’re in the later, then I cannot stress enough putting into place the plans and doing what you need to do to again be living a life where your dreams and passions are the tentpole of your life. If you are in the former, then keep building, expanding, going. You never know where your dreams or passions as a vehicle will take you next.
Regardless, again, life is now. So what are you waiting for? What are you going to do next?
