A Pretty Picture Does Not Make a Happy Life

Many years ago I had a male co-worker who, like many of us, grew-up in a pretty messed up family situation. When he was a child, in his mind, he made a conscious decision. He decided that when he grew up, things would be different, and he started to piece together a picture in his head of the future life he wanted for himself. The picture he created of the perfect life he wanted included a lovely and wholesome wife, a son, a daughter, a cat, a dog, and a house with two cars. I worked with him when he was in his mid-30s. At this time he successfully pieced together a life based upon that pretty picture. All the elements were there to create a perfect scrapbook life. Unfortunately, a pretty picture does not make a happy life. Something was missing....and today...three wives later....he is still trying to figure out what that is.

When I was younger I used to take a lot of photographs. At some point along the way I just stopped taking the pictures. The photographs that I took of my life and experiences were very pretty and evoked a positive emotion…but something wasn’t quite right about them. I couldn’t articulate what it was until I saw an interview with Brooke Shields last year for her book, “Down Came the Rain”. In this interview she discussed her post-partum depression after giving birth to her first daughter. When her daughter was an infant she had a magazine photo-shoot for a mother/daughter photo-spread. Brooke continued to describe the disconnect between the lack of emotion and bonding she actually felt toward her daughter and the beautiful Madonna-esque pictures in the magazine.

It was disconnect between the image in the photograph and the reality of the moment was my problem with pictures.

I can’t tell you how many times I have overheard my friends and co-workers talk about the problems they had wrangling their children, spouses and parents to photographer studios to take their annual family portraits: kids fighting amongst themselves, step-parents feeling left out, infants crying, etc. But the family portrait turns out beautiful and shows no indication of how unhappy everyone really was in the picture at the moment the photograph was taken.

I recall looking at pictures of various graduations, weddings, vacations and parties I attended over the years. Certain people in the pictures appear to be very happy and having the time of their lives. But, I was actually at those events and I remember that in reality a few of these “smiling happy people” were actually extremely stressed out due to an entire soap-opera undercurrent flowing through the entire event.

The problem with scrapbooks is that they rarely reflect reality. How many people have been on a family vacation that was tense and full of arguments…and didn’t really go as smoothly as you assumed it would? But when you take a look at the vacation scrapbook…everyone is smiling for the camera and looks as if they are having the time of their lives?

Something is missing....

I think the element that is missing is the emotion that reflects the reality of the moment.

The emotions of the actual event are rarely consistent with the emotions reflected in the photographs.

The question is: Do you want to remember your life as it really occurred? Or do you want to remember your life as it was photographed and airbrushed?