Hard Work

The year is almost over. Even though it will end with me posting much less on the blog then I had anticipated I am still happy about the result. Reading old posts I am amazed how much effort I put into every single of them and how much I like the pictures I shot.

This blog was and still is a great learning experience. When I set out in January I still had doubts about my work. It was very helpful to shoot on a daily basis. When you post 100 shots in a hundred days on the day you shot them and you like all of them it is time to stop pretending that you are not good at what you are doing. The blog gave me a tremendous amount of self-confidence.

I am convinced I could have done it. I am convinced I could have ended this year with the 366 posts as intended. But I would have had to pay a high price for that. I would have tortured myself. There are only so many hours in a day and sometimes I just had to say I can’t do it. It was a conscious decision though. When I realized that to accomplish my task would cater to my ego instead of helping me to find deeper understanding I knew I had to let go of posting on a daily basis.

It is my ego that wants to be special and that constantly projects happiness into the future. When I only reach this goal, if I only would practice yoga every day, if I only would have this person as my partner, if I only would make more money, if I only would have posted every day of the year then my life would be perfect, then I would win the big prize then people would recognize me, they would look up to me, they would love me and I would be happy.

But is this the case? Can hard work really get us what we want? Was the person that was wearing the gloves that I shot for today’s blog post that obviously must have worked very hard successful, rich, admired and loved? Was this person happy?

Does hard work get us anywhere or is it only a trick of the mind to distract us? Does our ego manipulate us to believe that happiness is out there and has to be achieved? Do we by running around and overburdening us with too much work not have the time to stop and look inside?

If we would do so we might find out that we are already all we ever wanted to be or achieve.

Having this realization would make hard work unnecessary. Others might still perceive us as hard working but we know that all we do is play a lot. :-)

"Hard Work" Williamsburg/Brooklyn/Grand Street Project 12-22-08 around 04:00 PM

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