My dear friend Marsha invited me to photograph in an old house. She being a realtor had access to it and thought we could do something fun inside. The event grew until there were at least a dozen of us shooting around the house one lazy Sunday, and it was a lot of fun. I found myself hiding though, wanting, or maybe, needing to be alone with my thoughts. I’ve been like that a lot lately. I’ve been craving the intimacy that creating something new and personal can warrant. So I hid in a bathroom for a while as I gathered myself. True Brooke fashion.

I brought a mask with me. I was in Connecticut the weekend before teaching a workshop (an extremely fun one, at that – thank you New Britain Museum of Art for having me!) and one of the attendees showed me a picture of the mask. I immediately starting making a big fuss over how beautiful it was, and the next day it was in my hands as a gift! Thank you Connie! I will never forget that!

I had my sister-in-law with me to photograph, which was really nice because she brought a sense of calm and patience to the day, and a willingness to do anything. I photographed many things that day, from buttons to bathtubs, but at the end of it, this was the only image that really stood out as being close to my heart. I will still edit the others one day, but until then, this one speaks to me.

Other people did…but not them.

From dreams to nightmares and everything in between my life has been utterly filled with nonsense and magic – some scary, some whimsical, and all amazing. In many ways, I see myself in this image. I see myself as a different character everyday with the same soul. I see myself as the great crescent moon that sings to the stars until they come close enough to light my way.

I decided to share a backward edit of the photo I am sharing today to emphasize how everything that we do begins as a small idea. It may seem impossible, it might seem like it isn’t worth finishing, and there might be people criticizing the idea or the process; but in the end, when all is said and done, it is not the finished product that means half as much as the journey. An idea stays an idea unless you see it through to the end, and in the end, people judge their lives based on how many ideas became reality.

And if you would, share what you plan on doing this week that will turn an idea into reality. I want to be inspired by your commitment to seeing it through to the end.

The problem is not that we have hopes and dreams, it is that we measure those hopes and dreams against how someone else has defined success. And the funny thing is, that definition will always change. We will agree with some people and disagree with others. We will form our own opinions and those opinions will change. We constantly chase those new definitions, and we constantly change them.

What if we stopped thinking about success at all? What if we took that out of the equation? That is a very difficult thing to do in the society we live in. People are constantly flaunting their success on the internet. Magazines feature the “most beautiful people” on their covers. We watch reality TV shows and wonder why our lives aren’t so amazing. We constantly compare, and at the heart of those comparisons is the basic question: Who is more successful? Me or them?

Who cares about success? When all is said and done, and we’ve gone to our graves, no one cares about how much money you had, or how famous you were, or anything else for that matter. You are the only one living life every single day, every single moment, with yourself. You are your best ally and friend. You are the one who is going to get up in the morning, try hard, and go to sleep at night. So erase the word “success” from your vocabulary and try replacing it with something more productive: happiness, for example. Or love. Or meaning. Or…Anything at all.

Because we don’t have the time to waste on thinking about something so intangible and destructive. Success is a word that inherently means competition and comparison. The only reason we understand how to measure success in society is because we are fed a daily dose of news about who is successful and who is not, and we are taught to judge those people based on that. From there we are taught to be those people, and to strive for more, and to allow success to define who we are.

Focus on bliss.

Follow your bliss, as Joseph Campbell would say.

Find what it is that makes you whole, and become that.
Chase it.
Let it fill you.

In all of this craziness, with the year coming to a close and inspiration running deep in my veins, I decided I could use some simplicity this week for my Promoting Passion video. I recorded my screen while editing my latest picture, though it froze a quarter of the way through so I finished the video by including screen grabs of the editing process thereafter. Sometimes all I need to feel the calm is some inspiring music and the reminder that life moves at the pace we set, and we always have the option to change it. But right now, I’m going to enjoy each minute and taking home a lesson from every journey.

…take a moment to savor the beauty in your life.

Create something unexpected. Do something to remind yourself how amazing the world is. Take a walk. Make a piece of art. Give someone a hug. And above all, create your dreams.

Do not allow yourself to be defined by where you are now, but instead by where you are going.

The journey is dark, yet when a shining light brightens a dark room it seems more powerful than the same light added to a bright room.

Any light, no matter how dim, will guide you through the darkness.

When you realize that light must come from within, not from those who may walk beside you, you are infinitely powerful.

We possess the strength to move forward, try harder, dream bigger, and do the things we wish for.

And, perhaps, it is thankfulness that allows the happiness meter to teeter from one side to another – the idea that we can be grateful for everything we have, or might have, or will never have. The idea that we can be grateful for the decisions we are able to make. The idea that we can be grateful no matter what life throws in our way. We have control over how we see the world and how we treat the things in our world. And we can control how we react and act and give back to the world.

All of this culminates in one very moving thought:

HAPPINESS IS A DREAM THAT WE MUST CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN.

Think about how often we search for a THING that will make us happy, be it money or a house or a lover or an adventure. Yet those things, while they are amazing, are not wholly what creates happiness in us. Therefore happiness is not something that we either have or do not have based on what we possess; it comes to us as freely as the wind in our hair or snow flakes on our lips. It is ours to take at any moment, despite our circumstance and status. It is there always, beckoning us if we choose to hear it.

We have great power in the world and even greater power within ourselves. We can choose happiness, and that is something I do now and always. I do not let happiness become something I am searching for because it is already here, found, and locked inside my mind like a most beautiful memory: even when it fades, it still has a place that will never be lost, and can always be found again.

I am happy because I understand what happiness is to me. I understand that it is something that I need not search for but see all around me. It is inside me. It is the way I see the world and react to the world and contribute to the world. It is waking up every morning to see the sun rise and saying hello to a beautiful day because it is a beautiful day, and a beautiful life.

It is saying hello to life, greeting Her with a smile, and understanding that we have the power to exist passionately.

And all of this is wonderful – my favorite thing to do – aside from the fact that I forgot to bring my remote and had to run across a rocky creek in bare feet while flinging myself on top of a rock to pose in under 10 seconds.

It was so much fun though. I couldn’t imagine, in that moment, spending my time any other way.

And I’m pretty sure the fly fishermen couldn’t imagine why I was spending my time that way. Tehe! But I loved it. I live for that. Adventure and fulfillment excitement so much, and that day, I felt both tenfold. To be able to inspire yourself for an image is an amazing feeling, but to inspire yourself in life is invigorating. To me, that is what keeps the passion alive. It isn’t so much about what the picture looks like, but what it took to take it. To run out in the forest barefoot and feel at peace with my surroundings – that is my happy place.

I hope you find it to be just as comforting. Now…go live your passion!

I’ve been counting the months until I would be able to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Oh yes, I adore Harry Potter…more than you are understanding right now. So when I got the chance to give a lecture in Florida, I immediately resolved that I would be going to visit the Harry Potter theme park. It was Tuesday. I woke up in a flurry of excitement very much like I used to do as a child on the summer day when I would get to go to Hershey Park (my local theme park) once a year. I put on my best magical wardrobe that I had traveled with (completely with fairytale white dress, TARDIS knee socks, a cloak, and pigtails) and headed out the door.

When we started walking up to the park, I realized that I had forgotten my camera. I felt heartbroken! I wanted so badly to capture the magic of the day. We didn’t even have cell phones with us. So it was decided that when we got into the park, despite it being far overpriced, we would buy two disposable cameras. I hadn’t used one in about 7 years, and holding it in my hand felt magical somehow, as though I had stepped back in time to when that was normal. I loved not being able to see the pictures I was taking. I loved not worrying about camera settings. I just took pictures of everything that made me happy, silly or not, and I was completely content.

I got many knowing winks and nods and shouts from people who recognized my Doctor Who socks and even waited in line with someone I went to college with, all the while approaching the wand shop (my favorite thing). When I finally got to go inside there was a demonstration of how to use a wand, and myself and my sister-in-law were chosen to demonstrate the feat. I was over the moon. I was smiling ear to ear and couldn’t believe that I had been chosen. Yes, chosen. Don’t hate.

After my wand chose me and I got to perform a spell in front of the crowd I hurriedly moved into the wand shop to purchase my pride and joy…a tourist trap, perhaps, but completely worth the money spent. To feel like a child. To feel magical. To feel powerful. To believe in make-believe. A wand is just a stick in the wrong hands, as so many things in life are. Any situation can be turned negative or positive. Any part of life can be seen with magic or without, and it is up to us to decide which side we are on: the side of magic, or not.

The pictures I took with my disposable camera show the happiest of memories. I was beaming all day long and still am, thinking of how in control I felt over my happiness. I truly felt as though I let the magic in me shine.

This new video is all about the new year. Admittedly I rambled a bit, but I wanted to speak from the heart and just put it all out there on this one. The others will be tighter though! So for this video we deal with a new year, new dreams and aspirations, and I share a photo that I created with those things in mind, including a speed edit of that image.

If you’ll share your new year’s resolutions with me I’d love to hear them because my biggest motivations in life included inspiration itself, and I just love hearing the motivations and dreams of others. Thank you for inspiring me now and always, I take that with me into the new year feeling like anything is possible.