TECHNOLOGY: SAVE US FROM OURSELVES! ARTICLE #2 – PHOTOGRAPHY

How Lessons Learned From Old Technologies Can Be Applied To Our Personal Development

This series of articles aims to raise our awareness of how mastering certain skills of personal development could have as important an impact on our lives as the technologies we daily take for granted. It will also show that not mastering these skills is like living in the darkness that preceded the advent of these technologies.

ARTICLE #2 – PHOTOGRAPHY

In this second article, I will show that the leadership skill of AWARENESS can be used like photography.

Given the pace of modern life, human beings now find it difficult to stop and think.  They are always on the move, pushing and striving, trying to accomplish the next thing. But in the process, they have forgotten their beingness.

Awareness can help us to stop, just like we do when we look at a picture, and reflect before taking action.

After reading this article, you will conclude that living without using awareness is like living in the darkness that prevailed before the invention of photography.

A little bit of history

Photography was invented in the early decades of the 19th century.  It was devised over many years through the work of individuals like Thomas Wedgwood, Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot.

The inception of these visual documents of personal and public history engendered vast changes in how people perceive history, time, and themselves.

The photograph was considered incontestable proof of an event, experience, or state of being.

By the last quarter of the 19th century, most households could boast respectable photographic collections. These took two main forms: the family album, and; scrapbooks containing large prints of views from various parts of the world.

For the first time in history, photography provided records of vistas and peoples never before seen by Western eyes.

With the advent of cellphone photography, the phenomenon has increased considerably.  Everybody takes pictures to immortalize their story and transform it into history.

WHAT IS THE LINK WITH YOUR OWN EVOLUTION?

I propose that the lessons learned from photography can enhance your awareness in 3 ways that will improve your life. 

But first, let’s define AWARENESS.

According to Merriam-Webster it is:

knowing and understanding a lot about what is happening in the world or around you

It also applies to what is going on inside of you.

3 Ways to use the lessons learned from photography

You can take a picture of your life as you would take a photograph, then look at it and analyze it. It will enable you to understand where you are in your life, where you have been, what you have gone through and learned, and so on.

First way – From an historical point of view and to analyse our past

As photography did for people in the past, awareness can:

• Change your perception of your world, your history, and yourself.
• Bring incontestable proof of what your reality was and is.
• Help you inventory your experiences so you can check them at will and learn from them.

The comments we hear from people when they look at old pictures usually refer to how funny they dressed, how different their haircut was, how much younger they looked, and so on.

These reflections show that:

• There was evolution or regression, that there was either positive or negative change. If the result has been stagnation or regression, it should motivate you to take charge and look for what you need to have more success and fulfilment in your life.
• They instantaneously make us realize facts about ourselves.
• They often bring nostalgia because we often say, “Those were the good old days!”

If we come to these conclusions, it means that we often didn’t realized then that it was indeed a very good time.  This means that our awareness was shut down or turned off.

Second way – from a personal development point of view

It could help you identify:

• Areas of weakness and talent for improvement.
• Areas that need to be changed or eliminated from our lives.

Third way – A picture enables you to stop time in the present moment

Awareness can be used at any moment just like when we take pictures.  You can take a snapshot at any time–you just need to recognize the opportunities to use awareness as you do when you tell yourself, ‘I will take a picture with my cell phone.’

It will enable you to assess where you are by asking yourself the following questions:

• What I am doing?
• Why am I doing this?

Being grateful at the end of each day enables you to introduce more and more awareness into your life.

Now that you know that AWARENESS can act like photography, would you live without it?

Awareness gives you a picture of where you are or where you were. It enables you to stop and be, to feel and think.  And finally, it enables you to make necessary adjustments.

I suggest you try the free assessment tool, ‘’Chart Your Life’’, which will help you take a picture of your life to apply the lessons proposed above and start a reflection.

https://dussaultexpert.com/en/#take-your-first-step-toward-more-success

Be there for the next article of this series wherein I will talk about the impact of Electricity in society and how we can use the lessons learned from this technology in our personal development.