Life Cropping

In photography the term cropping refers to trimming down a picture to focus on what's important and remove unnecessary and distracting elements. Most photo editors give you some ability to crop a photo and save off the result. As we all know, there are many, many people who aren't aware of the benefits of cropping or perhaps just don't know how. If you're crop-illiterate, do a web search or ask a friend how to do it on your computer, phone, tablet, whatever.

Going beyond the realm of photos, one can think of the concept of Life Cropping. The same premise applies: Focus on what's important and remove unnecessary and distracting elements. It is too easy to get caught up in the noise of everyday life coming from work, kids, bills, relationships, and so on. Take the time to look at your life and determine which parts should stay in the picture and which should be cropped to improve the picture that is your life.

Now in case you're thinking "he's gone all inspirational on us", well "he" hasn't. I started out with the idea for the picture below.

After seeing thousands too many uncropped pictures on the internet, I wanted to poke fun at them. It started with a simple idea of just the fortune cookie, but that didn't translate well by itself so I added the other elements.

Maybe the moral of the story is there are life lessons everywhere. You just have to look for them.