At work, I’ve been accused of taking too many pictures. It’s been said that I take more pictures with my phone everyday than anyone else on EARTH!! Surely, that can’t be true, right?

I do take a lot of pictures. I use pictures instead of words to do a lot of my communicating. I am a graphic designer after all. I love that we can so easily snap a photo, maybe edit, draw on it, add text and then send it to someone else. I use them all the time for fun and for work too!

Speaking of taking pictures of my daughter, I do that soooo much! I am with her right now, on a typical morning at home, before I head off to work for the day. I am letting her play and roll around while I type. My wife loves to know how each one of our mornings has been spent. I take a few pictures and almost every day send her a photo collage of our cute baby girl.

Something I’ve noticed though is that little Joella and her expressions and actions are hard to capture on ‘film’. Especially in the morning, she is so animated and giddy. She cheeses super-wide grins and waves her arms almost anytime I look at her. She is intrigued and goes a little cross-eyed focusing in, to grab the tag of a plush toy. Her tired face gets a little red and she pulls a blanket up over her head right before she sleeps.

I want to record the exact thing I am seeing and experiencing, with my phone/camera and it is really difficult. I understand that the auto-focus isn’t quick enough to keep up with her movements, and babies rarely sit still. It’s something else, I think it is certainly her ever increasing awareness.

Actually, it’s a beautiful example of quantum mechanics at work.

Without the complex scientific definitions, it could be summed up with a phrase like this from Wayne Dyer:

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

See, when I am enjoying a small moment of observing my child at play, she is doing jsut that: play. It may have to do with the fact, that I am not trying to get her attention, or that she is totally engrossed in some fuzzy toy. Either way, the state of my observation of her, is allowing the adorableness that I am seeing.

When I change the nature of my intentions from observing to recording, then the nature of her play changes as well. I cannot make a shift in my actions without creating one in hers.

I could be really blunt and say that, “Every time I get out my camera, the kiddo stops being cute and just looks at the phone instead!”

And that is a very true statement.

However, this child has arrived, as they all do, to teach the parents some new things. Mine just happens to be clearly expressing the laws of quantum physics, that’s all 🙂

Back to Wayne Dyers comments; he usually was speaking to an audience of people, looking to make a positive shift in their lives. Maybe it is work, or love or money or spiritual purpose they want to improve. His words were designed to encourage and open thinking pathways to shift the mental gridlock that can cement us into negative places.

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Scientifically is a proven truth, that the act of observation changes the nature of the observed. Joella shows me that too.

If I want something in my life to change, that I observe to be problematic, the solution cannot exclusively come by forcing a reconstructive effort upon that object itself. Without a change in my own perspective as observer, it will remain in the state it is.

All I have to do, to deflate the cutest little moment of daddy daughter time, is to pull out my phone and try to capture it. When I do that, it’s gone. So I’m learning to wait. I can photograph our kiddo with bright smiles and pics for mommy, but only when I’m willing to interrupt her world. Many times now, I let her be, let her learn and take my shots later.

Now that I’m an expert in quantum physics, I can create anything I want, right? Well, I’m actually still an infant too. Just spending my days exploring and trying to learn how this world works. I don’t by any stretch of the imagination, have it all figured out.

Until next week, my friends be well. God Bless You.

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols