So not too long ago, I joined a network of online freelance writers to see how my writing would be received among my cyber peers. Helium.com is a rather large and intricate network filled with any number of topics to submit to from politics and personal finance to arts and humanities. As a member, you post your articles to whatever channel you choose and other members rate your work. Each time you get rated, you move up or down in the list of articles relative to how others have been rated. What’s great about this site is that it’s also a marketplace for publications looking for specific articles. The better your ratings are, the more credible and appealing your work becomes to them and they are free to purchase your work directly from the site.
By no means did I join the network in anticipation of being published. Mostly, it was just to take my writing beyond my blog site to see how other writers (some professional) would rate my work. As it turns out, they are rating it fairly nicely! I’ve only submitted three articles so far but all of them have rated in the top 50% and just this morning, my most recent article became the top rated in its category! I’m so excited!
Below is the article that I submitted, which has been tweaked to the helium writing guidelines from a previous post that I had written. I submitted it under the category of Photography: Humour, which I was very apprehensive about doing because despite my best efforts…I don’t consider my writing very humorous at all!!
I realize that this is such a tiny baby step in the big, bad world of writing but right now, being at the top of Helium’s Photography: Humour list feels like being at the top of the New York Times Bestseller list!!!
By no means did I join the network in anticipation of being published. Mostly, it was just to take my writing beyond my blog site to see how other writers (some professional) would rate my work. As it turns out, they are rating it fairly nicely! I’ve only submitted three articles so far but all of them have rated in the top 50% and just this morning, my most recent article became the top rated in its category! I’m so excited!
Below is the article that I submitted, which has been tweaked to the helium writing guidelines from a previous post that I had written. I submitted it under the category of Photography: Humour, which I was very apprehensive about doing because despite my best efforts…I don’t consider my writing very humorous at all!!
I realize that this is such a tiny baby step in the big, bad world of writing but right now, being at the top of Helium’s Photography: Humour list feels like being at the top of the New York Times Bestseller list!!!
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Picture This...
Article Submitted By:
Genevieve V. Georget-Smyth
Article Submitted By:
Genevieve V. Georget-Smyth
Picture this…It's eight grade and you are at one of your last elementary school dances. The disco ball is turning, the lights are flashing and the DJ is playing something that you've heard on the radio a thousand times already (in my day, it would have been something by Heavy D or Criss Cross, remember them?) when suddenly, a slow song comes on. The gymnasium suddenly parts like the Red Sea, with all of the guys against one wall and all of the girls against the other. The teachers who are chaperoning the evening look about as uncomfortable as everyone else feels and somehow, you all know that you're all thinking the very same thing…who's going to make the first move? While everyone is standing there, time is slowly ticking away as you are contemplating whether or not you have the guts to ask THAT guy or girl (okay, never mind, ANY guy or girl) to dance. Slowly, one brave person begins to walk across the gymnasium into the adolescent equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle and the song ends. The moment is over and then TLC suddenly comes on the speakers reminding you not to chase after waterfalls…stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to!
This scenario, like so many others, is a perfect example of what happens when we let the moment slip away. When we long for something but, neglect to take the opportunity because of fear or insecurity or as Bono would so eloquently put it "we're stuck in a moment that we can't get out of".
What happens when we stand there against the wall of the gymnasium, staring at that one single person that we so desperately want to approach? Is it a fear of rejection? Fear of what we know? Or fear of what we don't know? I think that in many cases, our imagined reality (that the guy/girl of our elementary school dreams secretly has a crush on us and wants to ask us to run away to Mexico with them!) is better than the potential truth of our current reality (that they may say no and immediately go running for the hills!).
Here's the thing though…how often, when weighing these odds, do we stop to consider the difference between probability versus possibility? Anything is possible but the odds of the worse possible scenario happening are a lot less in our favour when we consider the probability of it happening! All this to say that, okay, perhaps that guy/girl won't suddenly be stuffing your desk with little Garfield Valentine cards but, odds are that they also aren't suddenly going to transfer schools the following Monday just so they don't have to look you in the eye ever again! My guess is, whatever does happen, come grade nine, it won't matter anyways because you'll find yourself in a whole new adolescent abyss and four years of just trying to avoid embarrassment! With that being said though, you will also never have to look back and wonder if those four years could have potentially been spent on the beaches of Mexico ordering virgin daiquiris with your elementary school flame!
How many of these little things have happened to you? A moment comes and provides the best, and possibly the only, opportunity and we spend so much time contemplating it and weighing its options that before we know it…it's gone. How many times have you failed to seize the day? Seizing the moment, any moment, is guaranteed to do two things; first, it is guaranteed to throw you into the unknown. What's interesting about this is that this is why most people don't seize it fear of the unknown. Secondly, it is guaranteed to change your life. What's interesting about this is that this is why most people DO seize it; regardless of the outcome, your life will be altered in some manner and more times than not, in a forward motion. Either way though, you will never be left wondering what could have been.
So, after spending the day reflecting upon this enlightenment, I noticed that there is one thing in particular that I have never seized…my passion for photography. My husband and I collect photographs, usually purchasing a new work to mark each new occasion in our relationship; moving in together, getting married, our honeymoon. I simply love photography and always have. Perhaps it's my love of people watching or the fact that I'm highly intuitive when it comes to people's emotions but whatever it is, I feel the need to capture it somehow. Oddly enough though, I've never taken up photography and I've hardly even owned a camera before! And, much to my surprise, I can explain this (God bless psychology classes!); I have no idea whether or not I would make a good photographer but, my imagined reality that I'm an award winning photographer in hiding is better than the potentially true reality that I'm a terrible photographer altogether. Crazy, I know! But sometimes, we just want to believe something so badly that the possibility, whether its true or not, is easier than the probability.
So, what's a girl to do when confronted with this dilemma? Well, you have to allow your hand to let go of the wall and make the long journey to the other side of the gymnasium with everyone watching (yes, even the teachers!) and you have to ask that cute boy from home room if he'll dance with you because they are only going to play Boyz II Men once tonight and you better believe that you are going to be in love when they do! And you know what…even if he says no, you can still find joy in knowing that the moment you crossed over to the other side of the line, everyone else took a deep breath and did the same thing. And because everyone else was so busy worrying about their own sweaty palms, they didn't even notice that you had to swallow your pride, walk away and touch up your cherry flavoured lip-gloss!
So that's what I did…I let go of the wall, seized a giant online camera sale and bought a Nikon D40 (go big or go home, right?!?). It's sleek, sophisticated and perfect for capturing our life on film! I'm certainly not saying that National Geographic will soon be knocking at our door but, at the very least, we now have a digital witness to our lives; Some thing and some way to look back and smile at the moments gone by…the moments that we seized so we'd never be left wondering.
This scenario, like so many others, is a perfect example of what happens when we let the moment slip away. When we long for something but, neglect to take the opportunity because of fear or insecurity or as Bono would so eloquently put it "we're stuck in a moment that we can't get out of".
What happens when we stand there against the wall of the gymnasium, staring at that one single person that we so desperately want to approach? Is it a fear of rejection? Fear of what we know? Or fear of what we don't know? I think that in many cases, our imagined reality (that the guy/girl of our elementary school dreams secretly has a crush on us and wants to ask us to run away to Mexico with them!) is better than the potential truth of our current reality (that they may say no and immediately go running for the hills!).
Here's the thing though…how often, when weighing these odds, do we stop to consider the difference between probability versus possibility? Anything is possible but the odds of the worse possible scenario happening are a lot less in our favour when we consider the probability of it happening! All this to say that, okay, perhaps that guy/girl won't suddenly be stuffing your desk with little Garfield Valentine cards but, odds are that they also aren't suddenly going to transfer schools the following Monday just so they don't have to look you in the eye ever again! My guess is, whatever does happen, come grade nine, it won't matter anyways because you'll find yourself in a whole new adolescent abyss and four years of just trying to avoid embarrassment! With that being said though, you will also never have to look back and wonder if those four years could have potentially been spent on the beaches of Mexico ordering virgin daiquiris with your elementary school flame!
How many of these little things have happened to you? A moment comes and provides the best, and possibly the only, opportunity and we spend so much time contemplating it and weighing its options that before we know it…it's gone. How many times have you failed to seize the day? Seizing the moment, any moment, is guaranteed to do two things; first, it is guaranteed to throw you into the unknown. What's interesting about this is that this is why most people don't seize it fear of the unknown. Secondly, it is guaranteed to change your life. What's interesting about this is that this is why most people DO seize it; regardless of the outcome, your life will be altered in some manner and more times than not, in a forward motion. Either way though, you will never be left wondering what could have been.
So, after spending the day reflecting upon this enlightenment, I noticed that there is one thing in particular that I have never seized…my passion for photography. My husband and I collect photographs, usually purchasing a new work to mark each new occasion in our relationship; moving in together, getting married, our honeymoon. I simply love photography and always have. Perhaps it's my love of people watching or the fact that I'm highly intuitive when it comes to people's emotions but whatever it is, I feel the need to capture it somehow. Oddly enough though, I've never taken up photography and I've hardly even owned a camera before! And, much to my surprise, I can explain this (God bless psychology classes!); I have no idea whether or not I would make a good photographer but, my imagined reality that I'm an award winning photographer in hiding is better than the potentially true reality that I'm a terrible photographer altogether. Crazy, I know! But sometimes, we just want to believe something so badly that the possibility, whether its true or not, is easier than the probability.
So, what's a girl to do when confronted with this dilemma? Well, you have to allow your hand to let go of the wall and make the long journey to the other side of the gymnasium with everyone watching (yes, even the teachers!) and you have to ask that cute boy from home room if he'll dance with you because they are only going to play Boyz II Men once tonight and you better believe that you are going to be in love when they do! And you know what…even if he says no, you can still find joy in knowing that the moment you crossed over to the other side of the line, everyone else took a deep breath and did the same thing. And because everyone else was so busy worrying about their own sweaty palms, they didn't even notice that you had to swallow your pride, walk away and touch up your cherry flavoured lip-gloss!
So that's what I did…I let go of the wall, seized a giant online camera sale and bought a Nikon D40 (go big or go home, right?!?). It's sleek, sophisticated and perfect for capturing our life on film! I'm certainly not saying that National Geographic will soon be knocking at our door but, at the very least, we now have a digital witness to our lives; Some thing and some way to look back and smile at the moments gone by…the moments that we seized so we'd never be left wondering.
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