On a recent vacation to Yellowstone, I spent the first two days in picture kingdom. Every time when we drove by something of interest, we pulled the car over, I rushed everyone out of the car, lined them up for the grand-slam photo, barked orders to see smiley faces and then rushed everyone back in the car. On to the next place of interest.

On the third night, while listening to everyone’s sleepy breathing in the cabin, I finally had a moment to relax. So I tried to remember all the places we had seen over the last couple of days. And I couldn’t. I had to go back to my pictures to remember the scenes we had seen and the moments we had “experienced”. I had the sad revelation that while trying to capture forever the moment with my camera, I had missed to live through it.

The next day I left the camera at home. And that changed our whole vacation. We stopped, viewed, breathed, listened, discussed and admired the nature and its gifts. We took the time to use our imagination – what the forests and the rivers looked like 100 or 1000 years ago. We talked of the native people who roamed those lands before us. We stopped to actually read the signs, instead of taking a picture of them in hope we would go back and read them later (which we never do).

I adore the digital camera age – picture viewing and sharing has never been easier. But this was a great lesson learned. The ability to take 1000 pictures in one day does not mean that you should. A moment lived is a moment gone, and it really feels better when that moment is engraved in your mind and not so much in your memory card.