The street outside the window was full of gold, the last rays of sun filtering through the trees into my room. My cheeks were wet and my head sore from crying, although the truth is my head had been hurting for months already. I’d been in a car accident before the previous Christmas but as time went on we realized what we’d thought was just a little whiplash had grown into something that would debilitate me to the point of not returning to school after spring break.

With the sun setting quickly I felt the light in my room turn from warm to cool. I knew no one was coming to see me.

The days had turned into weeks by that point, every day a mixture of bed to couch to bed again, too tired and too many post-concussion symptoms to handle much else. It was hard for everyone to understand the extent of how bad things were, especially months after the initial accident. I was 16 at the time – that ripe old age of awkward where you think you know a lot about how the world works and who your friends are.

I didn’t go to school for three months and in teenager time that’s like three years of being absent. Ever miss a day of school? It’s like everyone and their dog had something happen to them while you were gone. Three months of being away and I bet Beyoncé could’ve performed in the cafeteria and I wouldn’t have heard about it.

That isolation changed me. Lying in my room that day I was disappointed when the friend who said they’d come visit didn’t make it. That day is just one of the many burned into my memory where I felt like I didn’t matter anymore. I felt like they didn’t notice I wasn’t around. I felt like I was on the outside and nobody cared enough to see me.

–  –  –

A year and a half later I sat in an interview for a job on my university campus. The role was essentially to connect people, to introduce strangers from different social spheres, to make people feel like they had someone to talk to between classes. Tears sprang to my eyes as my future boss told me of the most important guidelines for working there:

“Acknowledge every person that walks in and out of the doors. Say hello and goodbye. Learn their name and use it.

To you it might not seem like much, but to them – you could be the only person who really sees them that day.”

Our time together turned from interview to conversation about the hurt I’d gone through in high school. I felt like I hadn’t been seen, that no one cared whether I was around or not, and how that pain now fuelled why I loved the idea of the work I was going to do. I could do my best to make sure everyone knew they were seen. Even if all they did was walk through the building where I worked on their way to class, I could still show them they weren’t going unnoticed with a simple hello and goodbye from me.

–  –  –

I’ve known the bitter ache of feeling disconnected, of feeling like my presence isn’t missed or acknowledged, of feeling loneliness in the deep marrow of my bones. When I feel lonely I tend to retreat into myself because even though I know those woods are dark I know them well. I stop reaching out because I believe that old lie that people don’t care about me, that I don’t matter, that I’m not seen because there’s nothing to see here.

For so long I figured it was better to be in the woods where I couldn’t be seen anyway.

Sometimes I still think that, still go back to that familiar place of loneliness, but I’ve learned that God has called me to greatness instead of comfort.

And the truly remarkable thing about all that pain is that the Lord has redeemed it. He has turned those salty tears I spent years crying into a powerful gasoline to pour onto the fire within my soul.

And the thing that sets my soul on fire? It’s the opposite of loneliness.

It’s connection.

It fuels everything I do. In my everyday life, in the decisions I make for my business, in the kind of images I produce.

A while ago, at a time when I was first digging deeper into why I do the work I do, my sister posted an article that revolved around this quote from Jaime Casap:

“Don’t ask kids what they want to be when they grow up but what problems do they want to solve. This changes the conversation from who do I want to work for, to what do I need to learn to be able to do that.” 

His words have stuck with me ever since and that question – what problem do you want to solve in the world? – has helped shape my life. It’s also one of my favourite questions to ask at parties.

And the cool thing about that problem you want to solve? It can be solved in many different ways. It needs all kinds of people and all kinds of different talents to be solved, too.

We need visionaries with giant world-changing ideas, people who think outside the box, the ones that don’t feel the limits the world puts on their goals.

But we also need people who love lists and spreadsheets and understand numbers, the ones that help that world-changing idea keep running behind the scenes.

If we know why we’re doing the work we do we can approach everything with a greater understanding of how it connects to solving the problem we’re passionate about.

If we know what sets our soul on fire we can approach every job, even if it’s not the dream job, with deeper purpose.

If we know what talents God has given us, what life lessons we’ve learned that have stayed with us far after the time we learned them, we could put those together to help live in a way where we’re full of passion in our everyday lives.

–  –  –

So, the problem I want to solve in the world?

Loneliness.

Right now one of the tools I’m using to solve that problem is photography. It’s a mixture of the talents God has given me, my interest in what it means to love people, and the stuff that lights my soul on fire: connection.

I use my camera to showcase connection in all its glory. As a photographer I choose which moments get to stay long after they happen. Of all the things I want people to remember, I want them to remember their connection with real, tangible, feel-their-arms-around-you friends.

I want people to remember they matter, they are known, and they are seen.

Battling loneliness is not confined just to the images I produce. The way I interact with my couples, the conversations I have with guests – I don’t want people to feel like I took a picture of them. I want them to feel like I really saw them.

The tools I’m using to solve the problem of loneliness in the world may very well change as life goes on. The problem I want to solve may very well change, too, but for now, in this season, I want to fight for connection.

No matter what I do to make a living I can give a purpose to even the mundane tasks, I can understand more of who God made me to be, I can use every opportunity I have to say, “Look at what incredible things the Lord has done, bringing beauty from the ashes I experienced all those years ago.”

So, my friends, I ask you this:

What problem do you want to solve in the world?

 

 

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