Begin at the Beginning

This all began, as many great projects do, with late night ruminations about life.  Something about the quiet solitude of the late hours is so conducive to philosophical forays about the future and also the what-might-have beens.

As a highly passionate person, I have always thrown myself wholeheartedly into whatever my current focus may be... school, sorority, significant other, etc.  And for the last few years, that focus has been solely around my career and climbing the veritable corporate ladder.  Don't get me wrong, professionally, I gain a lot of satisfaction from, and, do genuinely enjoy my work.  Lately, however, I find myself a little too superficial and one-dimensional.  At first, after my promotion last year, I wrote off constant work as getting over the learning curve for my new role and that it would be over in 3-6 months.  But now, a whole year later, I still find myself working all the time, even on weekends and holidays.  Mostly, I used this time to catch up on emails, get ahead on other projects, etc.  And worse still, sometimes, (as pathetic as it sounds) just because I didn't have anything better to do.  During this period of self-reflection, I also happened upon Erin Callan's Op/Ed for the NYTimes, which profoundly resonated with me, and I realized that one of my greatest fears in life is to wake up on the day I retire with no other accomplishments, passions, or relationships to my name aside from professional work.

Thus, the idea to begin on my own 10,000 Hour Venture was born.

Malcolm Gladwell explores this concept in his book, Outliers. Basically, the idea is that becoming an expert in something takes an enormous amount of time - namely, 10,000 hours.  He uses examples of the Beatles, Bill Gates, and even himself as confirmation of this model.  Doing the math, even working on something for 20 hours a week (far more time than I'd probably be able to devote to my project), it would take approximately 10 years to reach 10,000 hours.

But, daunting as that sounds, I'm still fascinated by the concept and comforted by the fact that beginning on this venture provides me another area of focus and interest: photography.

I've always loved photography and find it to be the one artsy thing I can do.  I may not be able to sketch much, but I can point a camera and fiddle with some knobs and push a button.

And I think focusing on honing the craft of photography is something that will force me to go on adventures - seek out new and exciting subjects, travel, explore, and meet new people - all things I love to do, but for various reasons, have eluded me to date.

And so, having just purchased a new DSLR camera and starting with this post, it's off to see the wizard, tallyho, and full speed ahead!!