#78 Enjoy the journey

In 2013, I boarded the train to Kolkata with a bunch of friends on a photography trip. We roamed Kolkata for five days, walked the streets from morning till night, and we shot hundreds of photographs. It was great. But, when I came back and looked at all the photographs on my computer, I found only five good photographs that I can proudly share with the world. The rest were mediocre.

This was not new. Whenever I go on a photography trip or weekend photo walks, I get one, or maybe two decent photographs on a good day. Most of the time, I got nothing. But, every Saturday, a bunch of us used to wake up at four in the morning and we walked the city streets with our cameras.

Because more than the photographs, we loved the journey. We loved walking through random streets, meeting new people, discovering new restaurants, and I could go on. We had our share of good and bad days, but it added to our experience as photographers and humans.

When I think about those years, I realize that we can’t expect the desired outcome in everything we do. Everything we do and every decision we make in life is a gamble. We can hope for a probable outcome, but we can never be sure about what to expect in the end. And there will be times when we might end up with nothing. We’ll feel heartbroken. We’ll think if it was worth all the effort. But, we knew failure was one of the outcomes. But, we never considered it.

I’m not saying one shouldn’t be optimistic. I’m saying we must be prepared for both outcomes. If we do so, we won't be sad or depressed when things go wrong. Instead, we’ll be grateful for the journey. Good or bad, every journey adds to your experience and makes us better humans.