Does it Have to be Perfect???
Don't let this happen to you!
How often have we said “Why bother” to go out when the conditions of an upcoming event are supposed to be imperfect, or worse?
Is that you? Do you sometimes just skip the whole thing? Me too. Many of us the do this occasionally, at least.
We can be hard to please
We see videos of amazing places, get vacation photos from friends, and it all looks incredible. How can we live up to all that??? Maybe if it’s not going to be stupendous, we shouldn’t bother. We’re gonna need to see or do something spectacular to top what we see from others.
And we must exceed what we see from other people, or we’ll lose The Best Experience Ever Game. Better not to try. Losing would be No Good.
You know the line. “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”
We don’t wanna be last.
OK maybe it’s not quite as competitive or dramatic as all that. Still, if our favorite band cancels, or a planned excursion faces a bad weather forecast, we might just abandon the idea of going out altogether. Likely it won’t be amazing enough. Not worth the effort.
I was going to stay home
I could have fallen into the same trap last week. It was late October, peak time to see all the pretty colors out here.
But a recent headline from the nearby Washington Post was representative of other publications’ posts:
“Extreme weather’s latest victim: The annual fun of fall foliage”
Bummer.
That’s it, then. Game over.
Fun has fallen victim!
No joy will be available out among the trees, the experts say, not this year.
My initial thoughts were, I guess I’ll go back to scrolling from my sofa. Might as well. It’ll be a colorless fall, so what’s the point in being out among the trees. It’ll be a total waste of my time and effort.
Poop. Maybe before settling down to scrolling, I’ll just mope. Wander around the house and pine for California, like the Mamas & the Papas did. Sing it with me: “All the leaves are browwwnnnn…. and the sky is graaayyyy”….
For a little while I really thought moping might be the Right Next Move. Wallow a bit, get it out of my system, and then feel better about scrolling as a next step. It was a plan!
But FOMO was nagging at me.
FOMO, Good and Bad
Fear of Missing Out. It’s a thing, for many of us. And sometimes FOMO is the only thing that will get us up off our couches and recliners.
If we lean on FOMO for the better, we can maybe get out the door and go. We might need FOMO, because Inertia is a powerful opponent. Inertia may lead us to eat snacks and enjoy our super-soft sweats. Inertia will remind us that there’s plenty to see from the comfort of our homes. There’s a game on, and the shopping channel. We can watch other people enjoy their hobbies all day long! Plus, there are videos of people hilariously falling down. And cat videos.
If we can draw upon FOMO to at least temporarily conquer Inertia, even if the opportunity is not The Most Perfect Situation That There Ever Was, we may find something more….
To be clear, FOMO doesn’t always drive the best behaviors. It can cause people to be frantic, trying to be everywhere at once. This is FOMO for the worse. In an effort to miss absolutely nothing, some people treat experiences as things to be checked off a list rather than actually enjoying a given experience. Check the box and run along to the next thing ASAP, before it’s too late! (I’ve seen this on safari, and it’s very sad). They do everything while experiencing nothing. In these cases FOMO does more harm than good.
Slow down, will ‘ya???
But if FOMO causes us to explore, that’s where opportunity lies. Opportunity, not promises. You still may look back on a given excursion and decide it was a complete bust. The alternate band might suck, the new restaurant could be nasty, you might turn an ankle on a curb or a trail.
But you would have been doing same-old, otherwise. And usually, if you are truly curious and without expectations, and look around wherever you are, you’ll find some interesting things that are hidden in plain sight.
One of Inertia’s favorite inactivities is to “Kill Time”. Think for a moment about the phrase “Killing Time.” Time is the one thing that, regardless of our wealth or personal freedom, is in limited supply for all of us. Do we really want to squander the scarcest of all resources?
So I got up
For two days last week, when I wasn’t doing an interesting portrait shoot (you might hear about that another time), I decided to ignore the Fall Color Experts and head out to the trees. I had zero expectations. And I was much better for it.
Right away something jumped out (literally). And I noticed that local frogs don’t seem to read the Sunday papers. They don’t care what other people say, and for them the season’s colors are just fine, thank you.
I suspect that Carolina wrens are disinterested in such publications, too. The conditions for foliage fun seemed to be perfectly acceptable to the birds last week.
The papers were right about one thing. I didn’t find big hillside forests with walls of rich colors blanketing them. No doubt it’s a “down year” in that regard.
But when I looked in much smaller spaces, there were plenty of colors to be found. They just don’t fit with what tour guides are selling.
And that’s just the small stuff. Sometimes a medium-scale scene has a treat in it too. This is not a wall of color, but occasionally less can be more.
And if you think you’ve seen everything by now, try ignoring that thought, and keep looking. Other things can emerge if you’re open to them. Try maybe where you wouldn’t ordinarily look. Try down at the surface of a stream, maybe you’ll find something there.
Happily, last week FOMO was my friend again. Once I got over myself, I imagined there would be at least some reward for stepping out, and the days turned out to be just fine. And if they had been less good? If I had taken no photographs? It still would have been worthwhile IMO. Taking full advantage of our time has, well, advantages.
The flip side: An experience is only guaranteed to be worthless if you choose not to experience it at all. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”1 Not just in sports or photography, but in life.
So, my friend.
Between now and next week’s edition, what will you choose to experience?
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Postscript: I approached this article differently. I had the idea for the story in advance, and I went out to create images specifically to support the story. As compared to my prior newsletters, where the experience came first. Let me know if you like it or not.
Is there something here you like, or dislike? Questions? Have anything else to say? Let us all know by clicking on the Comments button below, and express yourself. Don’t be shy, now.
If you like this post you’re bound to like the next one as well. I’m sending them weekly. Quit any time, or better yet, stay and read on!
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Or, are you interested in seeing more work? My website welcomes you. We may even want to work together. I promise a joyous and productive experience if we do. www.dobkinphoto.com
Wayne Gretzky
Never knew FOMO could be a good thing :) Thanks for the reminder - there's always something to photograph. But you have to get out for it indeed!
I like the framing of the story. It's takes on The cliche "lemonaide out of lemons." It's a healthy reminder that the only control we have is over ourselves. You have turned not doing an uninteresting portait shoot into a non-foliage foliage photo shoot. The alternative? As you said, boomer pop on your couch. This was way better!