People say a picture is worth a thousand words.
I don’t think that’s true.
For example, if you were asked to write a thousand words about the picture above, you’d likely include things such as how beautiful the scenery is, how refreshed and calm I appear and how brave I was to climb to the top of a mountain.
And none of those things would be true.
That’s the problem with pictures. They don’t tell the full story. Sure, they’re fully capable of capturing a picture-picture nanosecond in time, but they miss the pain and the glory that occurs just before or just after.
I don’t think a picture is worth a thousand words, I think it’s a worth a thousand assumptions.
We see a woman on the side of a mountain and we say, “Wow how courageous of her.” We see a picture-perfect family photo on Facebook (or Fakebook as my friend Lauren calls it), and we say, “Man, they really have their shit together.”
Maybe she isn’t. And maybe they don’t.
In the picture above, I was anything but courageous. I was terrified.
