Growing up to become a Do-Gooder

Day 122 in my 365 day lettering project.

 I had lunch with a former client earlier this week and we lamented about being really tired of small talk. I so much prefer one on one conversations but I love the kind of quick friendship that events like WPPI and Summer Camp encourage, ones where you jump from a compliment on an item of clothing to do you believe in soulmates. But instead of baring my soul to the world on my photography page, I keep it somewhat small-talk-y (I'm laughing to myself that I've never thought about small talk versus big talk, as in you talk a big game. Maybe I should talk a big game instead). But, you don't offer to be best friends to every girl at summer camp, either. Sometimes it's the one with a September birthday and blonde hair and blue eyes just like you (as in, my best friend, Stacy, who I met in first grade, and because of our extreme height differences and head shapes we still refer to each other as oppositely mutated twins), and sometimes it's just the person that you take the chance on because after camp you'll never have to see them again. For Stacy and I, who did spend several years at summer camp, it was everyone but Purple Shirt Girl, who was Not Very Nice.

Anywho, it's odd to be 26 and realizing that you are just beginning to know anything about yourself. So much of who I am seems to just be a reaction to everything and everyone I've come in contact with up to this point. I am just now starting to ask what I want, what things make me happy, what my priorities are. No one else has to/gets to live this life, it's just me. And I can share it with people, but I'm the only one I can change, I'm the one in control of what I accomplish in a day.

I bounce back and forth between loving life so much I can hardly stand it and being so negative about what's out there want to shut everything off and sleep in the fetal position. I'm becoming very aware of the direct relation this has to wanting to feel like I'm good enough. Today I edited an engagement session that I'm ridiculously obsessed with and felt like a pretty great photographer. Then I put a shameless request on my personal Facebook page for likes on my photography page, because I am so close to 2000 that it was just aggravating to see the number teetering there, and in just a few hours I had ten more likes, and even though it takes some 20 or so internet nods of approval to equal one real life "I like your dress/hair/shoes" even, it was pretty amazing how much it affected my mood.

If you knew that it would dramatically change a person's day for the better wouldn't you make more of an effort to compliment people, ask them how their day is going, tip an extra dollar even if it's only on a cup of coffee? I'm telling you, those small things make a world of difference. No, we shouldn't base our self worth on the opinions of anyone else, but I also believe in contributing to a restoration of faith in humans. A thousand little lovely acts probably equals one great big seemingly impossible task, but we rarely think of things that way. If you did one small kindness a day it would take less than 3 years to have accomplished contributing1000 good things to the world. So like some Facebook pages, comment on blogposts (we bloggers have an addiction to comments) tip when you can, never stop yourself from telling the cashier you like her nail polish, send handwritten notes just because, use your turn signal, and speak kindly about someone behind their backs any time you get the chance. I would like to dedicate this post to the Kid President crew, because I have so much more hope for the world in remembering what it was like to be a kid and want to Save the Wetlands, and I'm so happy as an adult to realize that I don't need to save the world in one fell swoop, but rather to bit by bit be a part of the solution.