it wasnt easy

i had an entry this year where i talked about creativity and how i wish had more of it in my life. a couple of years ago i was speaking with a woman at work - someone who is very creative and crafty from my point of view. we got to talking about what she has created and some of her projects. one of them was taking a photo everyday. - Project365, Photo A Day, A Year in Photos, etc.

ive heard about this many times but was never drawn to it. probably because i always thought that this worked better as a photo + blog combo and i just didnt want to commit to that. i mean look at this blog - three entries in 2017. nice. 

i dont know what happened but some force came over me and i suddenly wanted to make it happen. i knew that i had to make it sustainable for me so i needed to find a way to make it easy and i had to do it right away before the inspiration, drive to prove something, or whatever it was evaporated. the answers:

• Instagram
• Do it now - dont wait for the new year, dont wait for the beginning of the month, DO IT NOW.

so i did just that. i created a new instagram account on a saturday and had my first photo up by sunday - August 14, 2016.

1|365 trying to make breakfast a thing. kinda helps when food is cute. #Project365 #PhotoADay

A post shared by @ 0kae365 on Aug 14, 2016 at 2:36pm PDT

for those of you who know their DiSC Profile, i am a CI-Practitioner with a relatively flat graph and all letters falling in or very close to the blue bar. i took the test for this at work but a quick Google search will give you a few free tests. i havent done any of the free ones so im hesitant to recommend one.

for those of you who know their Myers-Briggs Type, i am an ISTJ-T, Logistician. everyone and their their dogs seemed to know their type so i figured i should do it too. ive been listening to Selfie Podcast and they recommended 16 Personalities.

did i just go off topic? maybe. but i thought those asides would be helpful to understand why it was very difficult for me to start my Project365 (this is the name variation i have decided to adopt for my version) on a rando day and to "cheat" - using my phone vs. my big camera, using instagram vs. using this platform, etc. but i figured this is better than nothing, this is better than overthinking it by trying to cling on to all all the rules while making sure i stick to it and being paralyzed by all the decisions i had to make perfectly. 

theoretically, it sounded easy - one photo a day, minimal caption, done. i also like taking photos and believe that im kinda decent at it (when i really try). this was the perfect solution to both my "i need to me more creative" and "i should really practice taking photos" problems. but just as the title says, it wasnt easy. the first week went well. i posted everyday, i posted early, and i really thought about what to post. 

but then life happened. sometimes, actually, a lot of the times, i forgot. either because i was busy at work or i did absolutely nothing that day. i learned that i should make time for when im busy and i should find something to do or something interesting in the mundane when im not. it got better, but it still wasnt perfect. i still missed some days like when i got really sick last year - i think it was the flu. i learned that first all, i am not immune to sickness. i rarely get sick, but when i do - OH BOY. this year, i still got sick. but i was only out for two days and not five - yas. improvement. the other thing that i learned was that sometimes, i just had to let go - i cant control everything. sometimes, i just have to be okay with not being okay all the time. sometimes, some things are more important. 

honestly, i didnt think that i would learn this much by doing this project. at most, it would be a great way for me to practice taking photos and remember the events of an entire year. photos are easy memory triggers for me and having a photo for each day of one year has helped me remember so much - enough to be able to write about it here. 

here are some of my memory triggers

all 365 photos are in my 0kae365 instagram account. i dont plan on shutting it down (for now) - i still like to go through them every now and then. i definitely have favourites but for different reasons - i tried a new technique, the event or activity behind the photo, or simply because the photo turned out nice.

thanks to that one conversation, i was inspired to make it happen. im glad i did it but im also glad it ended when it did. this was a great start and i would like to try something new now.