#BringBackOurMoments

I love to take pictures! I've got a thousand of them. It is an indisputable fact that pictures keep the memories alive. We are at a vacation, a party, a family reunion, or a hang out with friends, and we want to remember these moments. What do we do? We take pictures. Yeah!

But have you thought about what happens when the moments captured in the pictures were really never experienced? Does "to capture the moment" mean " to take pictures" only. Like seriously? C'mon!

Close your eyes. Take your mind to the past. Think about those memorable moments which you never captured with a camera. We all have such moments. I can remember a moment back in secondary school, when I was called out on the assembly ground to be applauded for a scholarship, I can recall my feelings at that moment. . .especially the piercing eyes from my schoolmates. I can also remember a moment in the university, when as a first year student, a lecturer asked that I stand in front of my course mates, I recall even the exact pair of sandals I wore because I couldn't take my eyes off them. I used to be shy. I'm proudly shy. *covers face*

These moment were important to me. It is a "memory snapshot". No pictures were taken. They are imprisoned in my memory. They live there.

Aha, I know you didn't close your eyes when I told you to. Can you now try to close your eyes?  The memories we really shared and lived, we never forget them.

Camera or not, pictures or not, what really creates these memories is the degree of our presence in the moments. The memories are actually the thrilling experience we had.

Let's picture this scene:

• Girl 1: Oh girl! where have you been? I haven't seen you in years. *snaps* 

          Girl 2: Good to see you too, bye.

Now, is that a memory? What exactly happened? Nothing. She ran into an old friend, they screamed, they hugged, the next thing she thought about was to take a picture. If you ask me, that picture she's having means nothing to her. They had no moment.

When we take a picture, we capture the moment, we want to remember it later. That's an action for the future. Yeah! I agree again.

I checked the dictionary: To "capture" means to take by force, to take prisoner, to seize. We have let our cameras capture the moment. No, I should say, we've permitted our cameras to take our moments captive. Our moments have become prisoners in the picture. Enough! It's time to fight. #BringBackOurMoments

We need to live in the moment, to be here and now.
It's good to take pictures to capture the moment. But it's also good to take the moment to experience it.

Go beyond taking the pictures, experience the moment.

Can you now drop that phone? That camera?  Let's talk. Let's play. Let's explore. Let's have fun. Let's face the business that brings us here. Let's live. Okay?

You may also like to "listen" to this short video - 2 Ways to Enjoy the Moment

 *snaps* Thanks for reading.


Written by Nwamaka Ajaegbu 
Follow on Twitter: @Amakamedia 
Email: amakamedia@yahoo.com

Heart Rays  . . .giving out the light.