Good Morning and Happy Sunday, friends!

I want to share with you a decision that changed my life.

But before I start I would like to ask you to tell me, to tell all of us something positive that you've done or have witnessed in your own life.

We humans tend to focus on the negative, and there are legitimate productive reasons to do this, but it's easy to get dragged down into a cesspool of pessimism. It's nice, every one in a while, to be reminded of what was good in the past so that in dreaming of what is possible in the future we can act positively in the present.

This isn't a contest or a game: there are no rules, just a simple prompt. I don't care how short or long your story is , how seemingly mundane, only that it means something to you and that you share it. Sometimes the simplest things are the most profound, and the first steps the hardest.

There's a book by Haven Kimmel titled "She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts". I want to hear about that time that you or someone you know got up off the couch.

A Scavenger Hunt image for "Brick"

Here's my story:

I'm posting on Steemit this morning because six years ago I decided "ah, what the heck, I'll give this a try."

I wasn't talking about Steemit then. I was on Google Plus, was new to the network and pretty new to photography too. It was 2012 and I was new to a lot of things.

Browsing on Google Plus I had come across this thing called Chrysta Rae's Photography Scavenger Hunt, and it looked fun but I didn't know anything about it, so I signed up (there was a limit of 500 people and I was one of the last). The concept of the Scavenger Hunt was that all the participants would be given 10 words, or themes, like "Purple" or "Gross," and we would have a month to create an image for each of these words. Afterwards our photos would be judged, winners awarded and all the images revealed publicly for everyone to see and comment on. It sounded fun - I was experimenting with different types of photography at that point and it was nice to have a target to aim at.

I signed up, got the list, and then did nothing for 28 days. On the 29th day I remembered that I hadn't done anything for the Hunt yet, and that maybe I should, but it seemed too hard to get all 10 photos in less than a couple of days. I almost gave up. It was at this moment that I had the life-changing thought "ah, what the heck, I'll give this a try."

And I did try. I started to brainstorm and I came up with a few ideas, I even took a couple of the photos and checked them off the list. Completion started to seem possible, but time was my enemy. It came down to the last night of the deadline, and I worked with my mom to come up with ideas and props, and found ways to shoot different concepts. Well after midnight I found myself outside on our walkway photographing a flaming drink in a glass (one of the themes was "Drinks on Fire"). The glass broke, but I got the shot. "This has to be the craziest thing I've ever done," I thought, not knowing the craziness it would inspire in later years.

I got my photos in before the deadline! Improbably, ten photos in less than two days, when I had been quite ready to give up just the day before. I submitted my pictures. One of them got a third place!!! This was a like a victory to me, and it inspired me to participate in the next round...and the next...and so on for many many years. The Scavenger Hunt community on Google Plus was incredible: tight, supportive, like a family - which is an odd thing to say about a photography group. I can't explain it, but it's true (we had a meetup in Las Vegas a couple of years ago, and it was like a family reunion).

Through the Hunt I learned how to be consciously creative as a photographer - how to work at being creative. I learned how to be competitive against myself while being supportive of others. I wanted to win, and that pushed me to go above and beyond, to take concepts one step farther, but I was just as happy to see my Scavenger friends taking those same steps. I won the Hunt and gained some recognition in the community and outside, and I started to feel like I really belonged, not just in the community but as a photographer. I made friends, and those friends lead to more friends. Most of my friends today are from the Scavenger Hunt: directly (like @jarvie, who I met after he judged the Hunt) or indirectly through people I met because of the Hunt (like @caseygrimley, who I met through @jarvie).

All of this has lead to wonderful opportunities and experiences. I've been in magazines, have competed and won the Photo Decathlon twice and have been given validating feedback from prominent photographers who I respect. Most of the traveling I have done in the last few years, the traveling that has allowed me to explore and create the kind of landscape photos that I love, was either with Scavenger friends or funded by work opportunities that came from Scavenger friends - and now here I am on Steemit because Scott @Jarvie called me up in January to tell me about this new network built on the blockchain that's going to become the next big thing. I said "okay" and the ball keeps rolling.

In short, who I am and most of what I do today is a direct result of a simple decision made on an unassuming spring afternoon six years ago: to get up and try.

So get up off the couch and do one very small thing right now (you can tell me your story later), and then follow it up with another very small thing. You might look back six years later and realize the first small thing was the biggest thing you've ever done.

Scavenger Hunt image for "Puppy"

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Apologies, I have no time to proof and edit my writing - I didn't mean to write anything at all this morning, but it just happened - now I have to sleep! I may fix some things later.