Smiles vs Everything Else...It's Your Choice

3/29/2015

Nothing will put a smile on your face faster than a day at a water park with a grandchild! However, the aches and pains the following day sure pointed out our age difference! LOL

I was watching a couple of short videos this week from SPTV at WPPI and I noticed I'm no longer a kid. Hey, I look in the mirror every day, but never notice a few more gray hairs, a new wrinkle or an extra chin hiding just under the beard line. I even said to Sheila, "When did I get so old?"

Well, in trying to find something to write about on a typical Sunday morning, I found this quote from Elizabeth Taylor:

"You have to be at peace with yourself. I love to laugh. I think laughter can cure.
You can see it in a person's face.
Around age forty, when your face has lost the glow of youth,
what you are inside starts to form on the outside.
Either the lines go up or they go down. If they go up, that's a good sign."

I honestly don't feel older and Sheila tells me regularly that I have yet to honestly mature. I notice I creak for ten minutes when I get up in the morning, but my ability to stop taking life so seriously has definitely changed. Most days start out smiling and more and more, I've noticed it's getting easier to practice what I preach.

The truth is, we're each only as old as we want to be. Over the years I've met a few photographers who were coming up on 80, even though their licenses said 45! Old souls with even older issues!

It all comes down to the choices we make. Every morning, just like today, the real "weather" is completely up to us! Just like me, you've got a choice to make - a day of smiles or a day when those lines Liz Taylor referred to are headed downward.

Make it a great day everybody. Hug somebody special...stay focused on things you love about your life and not things that raise the roof! And for those jackasses who don't get it - give them a hug too. After all, they need it more!

Wishing everybody a wonderful Sunday!

1 Comment

"Why?"

Check out "Why?" one of the most popular features on the SCU Blog. It's a very simple concept - one image, one artist and one short sound bite. Each artist shares what makes the image one of their most favorite. We're coming up on 100 artists featured since the project started. Click on the link above and you can scroll through all of the episodes to date.

Authors

Skip Cohen is President of SCU, founder of Marketing Essentials International and past president of Rangefinder Publishing and WPPI. He's been an active participant in the photographic industry since joining Hasselblad USA in 1987 as president. He has co-authored six books on photography and actively supports dozens of projects each year involving photographic education.

vicki zoller

3/29/2015 03:56:54 am

Loved this blog post this morning Skip . . . and the photo, of course made me smile!
One of the beautiful and amazing things about living in a free Western society is the amount of time we have to contemplate our 'happiness' or lack thereof.
Seriously - there are so many places on this planet where just getting through the day without being killed by an enemy, starved for lack of food, dying from lack of clean water, or worse, watching your child die from those very things, that contemplation of 'happiness' is WAAAAY down on the to-do list.
So here we sit, in the land of PLENTY (probably more like EXCESS) and can't pull a smile on on face for the life of us. Maybe our barrista made our double mocha-chocolatte-decaf-NON-Fat with 2% milk and that just started our whole day on a downward spiral. Then we had to sit in traffic and then someone took our parking spot and then Whole Foods was out of our favorite Organic Tofu and then it took 15 MINUTES to get a table at our favorite restaurant for dinner only to find out that OUR FAVORITE dish on the menu has been discontinued AND there is a new chef . . .. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG
The majority of us truly don't have enough REAL troubles to measure what REAL trouble looks like or feels like. And THAT is what also comes from living in a free Western society and is a blessing . . . but people need to recognize that blessing and can't because they are still stewing over that whole coffee snafu from earlier in the day.
I started a Facebook Page called 'Good News Only" page our motto is: We are positive thinkers, innovators, creative minds and thoughtful souls. We like to laugh at each other and ourselves. We know our days are filled with good news! I needed a place where the BEST of who we are shines through. Where CHOOSING to share goodness and joy was the ONLY choice!!
You are so right: WE HAVE A CHOICE and we spend most of our time in this amazing free society acting as if we don't and not understanding that by living in this amazing free society we actually have an OBLIGATION to choose happiness, laughter, smiling, goodness, kindness, and joy - if not for ourselves then for those that live in those places who DON'T have the choice.

“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.”
― Joseph Addison--

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