Just renewed my inLiquid membership and realized that a year had come and gone since I was first juried and accepted as an inLiquid artist. It made me think about all that has happened since that time … I had a couple of shows and prepared for an upcoming one in Lisbon, taught my darkroom workshop and my two courses at the Center for Learning in Retirement for two semesters, met with my Photo Chat group during our monthly Sunday get-togethers over coffee, led a number of photo walks, visited a number of great museum exhibits, and even made some good photographs.
Now that I think about it, that’s a lot, given everything else I have going on in my life. Fact is, that even though I got all of this done there’s so much I more wanted to accomplish that I didn’t. Why? Because I got caught up in a lot of time and brain wasters outside of photography and at its edges that just didn’t matter … taking precious time away from creative opportunities that do matter.
Sound familiar? Have you fallen into this trap? When it comes right down to it, wasting time … and mental energy … on non-essential things that don’t matter and are counterproductive to your overall and creative wellbeing is not a good thing. I know this now because in retrospect I’ve done a lot of it!
In the end there’s only so much time we have, so I want to do something really creative … make more time for meaningful photographs. And I’m not waiting to January 1st! No! I’ve decided to take stock of all this right now, and work to clear away all the non-worthwhile activity and focus on what is important to me. So should you.