Is it just me or did y’all’s parents ever make photo albums for you when you were a baby? And did you ever spend hours looking through them, trying to recover specific memories? I know I have, and I can still vividly remember the time I fell asleep on top of a watermelon. I think these pictures have made me realize how distinctive and malleable life is. I mean, I never knew I was going to move from Kansas to Wisconsin to Massachusetts in the span of 18 years. I never knew I was capable of leading the life I am now, being a college student looking to double major in psychology and neuroscience. I never knew how much fun I would have finding my independence and maturing away from home. Yet, I also never realized how fast life goes. They say that the days run long, but the years go by fast, and I have never agreed more. I often find myself stressed for the future and realizing halfway through that my stress is rooted in the dreams I never knew I could accomplish. Time is so delicate, and our memories can only slowly deteriorate as it passes on. One thing is for certain, the human nature of capturing life through pictures is a universal tradition that allows us to recollect the history of humanity down to our personal history. I would like to introduce “The 365 Project”, an idea that I would like to personally commit to and welcome everyone to do.Â
What is The 365 Project?
- The 365 Project is a personal project that I came up with as a form to document my life and remember everything that I have both accomplished and overcome. It is a project that I hope to inspire others to complete! The purpose of this project is to take a picture of either yourself, someone else, the scenery, an animal, literally anything you find aesthetically pleasing. These pictures will be tied to a small diary entry where you document your rose, thorn, and bud of that day. You could journal about this answering the following questions, for example:
- Rose: What went well for you today? Or, what’s something that made your day feel better?
- Thorn: What didn’t go as planned today? Or, what made today feel frustrating?
- Bud: What are you hoping for? Or, what will you do better for tomorrow?
- It’s also a way for you to write down any challenges that you were facing during that time, and celebrate the little things in life that you will not be able to remember 5 years from now.
What Do I Do with the Pictures and Diary Entries?
- As foreshadowed in the introduction, my plan with this project is to print out the pictures and stuff them in a photo album. The goal is to be able to label the pictures with the dates and glue or write the diary entry on the back of the pictures. Thus, you would be able to look through the pictures and go down memory lane as you read what you wrote on that day.
Can I Do This Digitally?
- I mean, you could, but I feel like so much is happening digitally that we often lose the purpose of physically looking through things like books or pictures. The intention is to be able to look through an album the old-fashioned way like some of us were able to when we looked at our baby pictures. Plus, you will not risk losing the pictures or diary entries if your phone runs out of storage, for example.Â
Where Can I Print Out my Pictures?
- You could always go to your local Walgreens or Wal-Mart store to print out your pictures at a reasonably low price. I would personally recommend Walgreens because they always have deals for their photo center!Â
- If you plan on being fancy, you could always do this using a Polaroid/Instax camera. I will say that this would start to get expensive at some point, BUT you could always choose to take some pictures with the camera.
- Unfortunately, we are also living in a digital world where sometimes it’s hard to print out pictures like before, so you could always find websites that specialize in storing and printing photos. These services ship the pictures directly to you.
When Do I Start?
- Anytime! If you are like me, you could always start the project on the 1st of any month, or you could wait it out until the new year.
What if I Forget a Day or More?
- No worries! This project is supposed to be completed at your own personal pace. This is your life to document and ironically, life always gets in the way. If you forget a day or more, you could always make it up and try to write down what you remember doing those missed days.
Time is always lost in the process of trying to get through life, yet it is still important to take time to reflect on your life. It is important to recognize all of the accomplishments, sacrifices, and challenges you overcame. We tend to forget everything we have done when we are stressed, and I believe that we always underestimate our potential. This is a way to prove to ourselves that we are capable of doing anything before we fall into a state of self-doubt and burnout. Personally, I cannot wait to continue this project for myself and maybe make it into an annual tradition!