Curating…

Whether you’re consciously aware of it or not, you’re curating aspects of your life every day.  From your personal brand to your memories…

Like me, when I complete a photoshoot, I go back over each of the photos and assessing their quality and if they are a “keeper” or not.

It’s sort of the same in terms of how we curate our lives.

Each of us in our own way subconsciously curate our experiences either into or out of our memories.  It helps us shape who we are but more importantly who we want to be seen as by others.

Whether it be our clothing style, hairstyle, our hobbies or social media posts they each shape the persona we’re hoping others will see and align with.

Curating our lives can also provide us with some level of feeling in control.  For the most part we have limited control over the majority of our lives, however, we do have some level of control over aspects of “fitting in”.

By curating aspects of lives, we can deliver a persona that we want others to see.

This also extends to people or groups that we want to impress or be seen as part of.

Another aspect of the curation process are our experiences and whether they make the grade in terms of memorability.

Often the stories that we tell align closely with our overall persona, so as we curate our experiences and memories to fit “our story”.

These stories are personal to us and us alone…

When I first began writing my weekly essay, I strove to dislodge the stories of my childhood that were mired deep in my memory bank.

Initially, this was quite a difficult process, but the more I endeavoured to remember them the easier it got to access them.

I did this for the specific purpose of providing these stories for my kids so that they knew who I was and the stories that made up my life.

This all stemmed from my dad’s passing and realizing how little I knew of him and that if something happened to me, they would be able to get a sense in later life of who I really was.

In many ways my dad and I had been ships passing in the night as he was a man of few words, and I had left home at 17.

During my childhood he worked two jobs at a minimum and tended a large vegetable garden during his down time, so we didn’t spend a lot of time together.

And as with many families we never discussed our personal lives, so my childhood felt as though it was at arm’s length of each other.

I suppose he was the catalyst for me beginning to write and express myself in the written word.

Since I began writing a weekly essay back in 2011 there is no doubt that I’ve shaped how I want people to see me.

Has this been a conscious choice?

Well, yes and no I suppose…

Yes, in that writing combined with my love of travel, photography and speaking have created my personal brand that I associate myself with.

But also no, in that I don’t think I ever set out to create something this specific, but it evolved over time.

In many ways I’ve curated a life that is both aspirational and inspirational as I constantly reinforce the message that you have to live life on your terms.

As I’ve said in many past essays “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul”, which are the famous words to the ending of the poem – Invictus by William Ernest Henley

By actively curating the aspects of your life that you want to be remembered for you’re taking control on how you want to live your life.

Sometimes people might think that actively curating your life and all the things that surround you is a bad thing, but I see it as an important part of our individual journey.

If we can’t help by shaping the narrative and curating the stories and persona of who we are then who can?

I certainly don’t want to leave it to someone else to tell others who I am or was as the case may be.

By making deliberate choices that are true to ourselves then we live our lives more authentically.  This also aligns with the concept of creating the life you want rather than live the life you have.

I’m a big believer in creating the environment that helps you live your best life.  To do this though you need to understand fundamentally what you want from life – your ambition or goals.

Personally, I worry less about how I’m going to get there and focus on shifting my mindset while keep my goals and ambitions at the forefront of my mind.

Each day reminding myself of these and making micro-steps towards them is vital for me personally.

So far, it’s worked out, not always as I expected but always moving towards where I want to be in life.

Remember, curating your life begins with you…

Until next week.

Ciao!