10,000 Hours Photography

10,000 Hours Photography is a passion project - a source of inspiration to escape the grind and start living, one hour at a time.  
 

Why 10,000 hours?

Popularized in Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, and explored further in Anders Ericsson's work, Peak, it's the concept that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate & usually guided practice to become an expert at something.  The theory's come up against some serious criticism recently, but regardless, it's a nice, lofty, and measureable goal.

Curiouser & curiouser...

I've always loved photography - as a kid, the greatest highlight of every vacation was being able to snap through rolls and rolls of film loaded in simple point and shoots. In high school, I took a photography class and learned how to take and develop black & white photos in a SLR camera - I loved it and even won a few local contests.

Then, of course, life happened.  I crossed that magical age line into adulthood and moved halfway across California to start college at Cal (Go Bears!). While my camera didn't exactly collect dust, I really only pulled it out for snapshots of my sorority sisters.  A chronic overachiever, my singular focus at school was throwing all of my energy into graduating and getting a job.  And sure enough, I got that job and started working for an amazing company.  However, because I was living a new city with no friends nearby, I threw myself into work because the one thing I didn't learn in undergrad/ever was how to enjoy the journey and balance my own interests along the way - it was always about that next accomplishment.  I worked hard and before I knew it, I was promoted.  I moved again and again and threw all of my energy into learning the new role and managing the new responsibilities.  But I realized, I wasn't happy.  I wasn't just on the fast track; I was on a runaway train. There were other goals I had in mind for my life besides just work success in the form of a c-suite.

My return to photography came somewhat on a whim.  I had spent a lot of long nights ruminating on my predicament and finally decided that I needed a hobby. While considering a long list of potential hobbies, I remembered that I really liked photography once upon a time and so, the project was born.  In pursuit of getting hours on this project, I've gone on some amazing adventures and vacations, met some awesome people, and even went back for my MBA while still navigating the corporate life.  In other words, I've finally learned how to live life in a balanced and fulfilling way.