The moment escaped. I had been waiting at a crossing to photograph my son as he competed in a mountain bike race. It was all planned out: when he hit this spot, click! Picture taken.
Here he came, entered the click zone, got it! I thought. Later, I was to find out that I barely got his backside in the picture before he disappeared down the trail. At the finish line, using the same theory, I got my action shot, but later found out that he had passed through so quickly, that all I had was a photo of my own shadow on the pavement.
The camera was sort of slow to respond, I suppose. In that second in which it was deciding to take the photo, the photo op was gone. I should have anticipated that.
Life is like that too. It comes at you sometimes with blazing speed with limited opportunities. Action must be taken quickly, decisively, or life will leave you with a half empty picture or one of a shadow of yourself that has missed the passion and joy offered momentarily by life but has passed quickly before you and is gone. There may not be a next time to be truly awake, to be ready for rich moments in life.
"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aides, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep."
Henry David Thoreau
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