In between the end of my first coffee and the start of a hectic day, I decided to carve out some time for my lens and I.
I headed down the road to an overpass at I-4 and tried to catch the rising sun against the hurried traffic heading east and west. I enjoy long exposure shots … they carry motion into an otherwise still photograph.
On my way back, I pulled over at the ball-fields on Walker Road and took in the rest of the sunrise as it painted the clouds and reflected in the ponds.
I hope you like this little collection of images!
By the time I got back to my desk, yes, my feet were wet but my heart was full. I leaned back into my chair as the sounds of my second coffee played out in the Keurig and I was pleased with myself.
Pleased, not because the pictures were so amazing, but pleased that I had carved a little time for myself before the madness that is Wednesday took over.
Sometimes it is easy to fall directly into the previous workday, picking up the pressures where we last left off. But doing that just allows one day to blend into another without the punctuation that makes it all worthwhile.
I know in the grand scheme of things it probably cost me an hour from my day. But endlessly working can cost us our souls.
We can convince ourselves, at times, that every moment has to be work-productive. We can even guilt ourselves for not being productive.
But productivity is not an end in itself and should never be our driving force.
Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining chillingly reminds us that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. It doesn’t take an axe to kill our soul though; it withers away when we fail to nurture it with love.
Love of another, love of ourselves, and love of the world we live in. It waters our soul like no other pastime.
We’ve all heard it before that nobody lies on their deathbed wishing they could just have one more work moment. But for one more moment of love, what would we all give?
