The problem with pictures

I document my life through photos.

I currently have more than 60,000 photos in my iCloud going back at least ten years.

When my kids were growing up, I heard a lot of “Oh, Mom, do we need to take a picture?”

My answer was always, “Yes, we need to take a picture.”

Maybe I got carried away sometimes, but then again, who’s to say.

Today, both my children are grateful for the photos I took. They give them a window into a time in their life that is no longer.

Isn't that what every photo can do for us, give us a window into the past and trigger a memory or two or ten?

Looking back can be fun, especially as time and the people we love move on.

But there’s a problem with pictures I recently discovered.

A discovery that caught me off guard and has me thinking about… 

The problem with pictures

On the wall of my home office, I have two multi-frame picture collages, the kind you can buy at places like Michaels and Home Goods.

There's a photo of me and my dad in his final summer in Maine.

There's a photo of me and my mom on the beach after we had lunch at the restaurant where we decided we would hold dad's Celebration of Life after party.

There's a photo of me with my son from August 2022 by the lake across from the restaurant where we celebrate summer birthdays every year.

There's the last picture of me and my brother and my mom and my dad taken about a month before dad died.

There's a picture of me and my kids standing in front of a castle on the Isle of Skye from our UK trip in 2019.

There's a picture of me and my brother and his two sons and my son jumping off a large rock into the lake near our summer camp.

I love these pictures. I value the memories they represent.

The problem with pictures like these is not the memories they hold, or the good feelings they give me when I look at them.

No, the problem with pictures is they represent the past where I’m no longer living, not the future where I'm heading.

Future forward? 

Many thought leaders in the self development space believe and teach that to move forward from our current existence into a bigger, brighter, bolder future, we must imagine the life we want to live, not the life we currently lead.

As such, the internet is full of recommendations for how to do this. For example, how to design a vision board that actually works.

Or how to write out in exquisite detail a day in your ideal life if money and time were no object.

What would you be doing? Where and with whom?

Believe it or not, this is one of the hardest exercises to complete, which is why most people never do it.

I have struggled at times to imagine in crystal clear detail the life I want to live beyond the one I’m living now. I've also succeeded at imagining my future and my ability and willingness to do this.

Some experiences I've had that were once dreams include:

• Traveling internationally
• Raising and launching two amazing children
• Living in beautiful homes in various parts of the Northwest and the Northeast
• Having many friends from around the world
• Enjoying material things like clothes, shoes, jewelry, and a super cool luxury convertible
• Writing and publishing several books
• Having time to do my art 

Many of my experiences have come from me dreaming big. 

From being willing to take some risks and step into the far unlit unknown.

Inspiration or bottleneck?

Nowhere in any of those self-development articles are instructions to cover your walls with photos of days gone by.

For those of us who still dream about something beyond what we currently have, could old photos be holding us back?

This is an interesting question.

On the one hand, old pictures can motivate us to strive for something like we once did.

On the other hand, old pictures can anchor us to a past that no longer has meaning or relevance to us.

They can also remind us of a past that no longer serves us, especially if that past wasn't the greatest.

Who among us doesn't have parts of our past we'd rather not recall?

Death. Divorce. Moving. Natural disasters. 

Life events have a way of thrusting us into unchartered territory. Sometimes of our own choosing. More often because of circumstances beyond our control.

I call this place the far unlit unknown.

Stepping into the far unlit unknown

The far unlit unknown is not just the title of one of my books.

It’s also the metaphor that has defined my life for as long as I can remember.

After two years of intense transition and personal growth, I find myself on the edge of the far unlit unknown again, thinking about what I want next.

What my future could look like.

I'm asking myself this question as I currently take inventory of my life and develop new projects.

Naturally, self-doubt hovers around the edges of the new space of where I could be heading. Rather than succumb to its clutches, however, I choose to remind myself about times in my life when I've taken a leap, despite having zero experience.

Like when I ventured to Alaska in 1986 to be a white water rafting guide. 

As scary as that was, it was and remains to this day one of the greatest adventures of my life.

I had no idea what that experience would hold for me.

There were no explicit instructions about how it was going to work out.

I took a leap of faith and had the time of my life.

My time there challenged me in ways I could never have anticipated. When I returned to the lower 48, I was definitely not the same person I’d been when I left.

And isn’t that the kind of outcome we all yearn for when we embark on a new adventure?

No clear answer

That young woman who stepped into the far unlit unknown of Alaska is still alive in me today. She is still there, that adventurous soul who did not hesitate to do something she’d never done before. 

That young woman who went on to become a teacher, a mother, a wife, a biotech sales person, a podcaster, a published author, a speaker, a songwriter, an artist, and a bunch of other things in-between.

These are important to remember about myself when I'm thinking about what's next.

The problem with pictures on the wall or our desk or on a bookcase in the hall is not the people in them.

It's not even the intention behind printing them out and putting them in a frame and / or hanging them on the wall.

The problem with pictures is they have the potential of keeping us comfortable rather than inspiring us to venture into the unfamiliar.

Yet here I sit looking up at the pictures from different times in my life, and I'm acutely aware that I don't have one from my days in Alaska.

This has me asking:

Would putting a picture on the wall of myself from my Alaska days inspire me to dream big -- or would it only remind me that those days are long gone and thus, keep me from forging new dreams?

Is it possible to think clearly about my future if I'm always looking at my past? 

I don't have an answer to these questions right now.

I also don't have a tidy ending to this post.

I am simply putting the questions “out there” because at this moment, I need to ask them.

My future depends on it.