Snapshots of Life

Tuongvan Le
Aug 27, 2017 · 2 min read

Sometimes I wish that our real life can just be as beautiful and perfect as the snapshots of happy moments that we put on Facebook or Instagram. We only put up pictures of happy moments but use words to describe the negative and less pleasant experiences. I wonder how life would be like I we take snapshots of our most miserable moments but instead write our happiness in words. This might sound like a stupid idea but it might be pretty fun. Lol.

I do think there is a worth to saving the most miserable moments in life as I feel that it might allow us to appreciate each happy moment in the present more. What if one day we sit and look back at all the miserable pictures of us in the past and realize how lucky and magical it is that we somehow have overcome these obstacles in our life. Instead of motivating ourselves by thinking optimistically about all the things that we could achieve in the future and where we can be, what if we look at all the stupid, naive, silly thoughts and states that we have been in so that we can develop more gratitude for the presence and appreciate all the visible progress we have made in the past few months, weeks, and years.

Perhaps it might be more realistic rewards that we can take pride in as it already happened, not something that might happen or we hope to happen in the future.

Maybe it would offer us more concrete and deeper sense of satisfaction than any hope, imagination, or thought of future can bring us.

Each picture is worth a thousand words, but we choose the words and the pictures that we want to save and look back in the future. We tend to choose the snapshots of life when we are happiest, most proud, most inspired. None of these pictures, however, is representative of the moment that we once belonged to or the life that we live. They are just snapshots and they matter when they have context. Where we are, how we feel, and what we are doing right now is only an instance of who we are in a bigger context.

We choose each snapshot of our life.

Just like we carefully choose which photos to upload on social media, we have the power to choose which snapshot of our life to make more of and which snapshot to delete or have less of.

And always bring a camera so we can capture those snapshots.


You can also explore my previous writings on Medium or on my Blog.

I would really appreciate any comment or feedback :D

)

Tuongvan Le

Written by

Harvard ’17 | Strategy & Data @ Opendoor | ex-Bain, Morgan Stanley | Passionate about writing, education, community empowerment | www.tuongvanle.me

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