How to Portrait Mode

Walking the streets of Lisbon recently, a family of tourists asked me to take their photo in front of one of the many city lookout points.

“Can you take it in portrait mode?” the dad added as he handed me their phone. I took their photos and they were very appreciative.

What I found ironic though was that by being in portrait mode, the beautiful city landscape became blurry. What was now in focus was the family.

This is representative of how I often move through daily life. In portrait mode. The focus is always, almost exclusively, on me.

In the face of some thing, some person, some place, or some activity, the first question that I ask myself is ‘what am I going to get from this?’.

The lens from which I evaluate whether something is worthwhile or not is based on the value that I may derive or abstract from it.

This way of thinking keeps my mental and emotional energy focused on me, often to the exclusion of the environment in which I’m operating. I am looking out for…me. And if there is any capacity left, then maybe those close to me or those that I feel responsible for.

If instead I asked the question ‘what am I ready to give to this?’, my energy completely shifts. The focus is not on me, but rather on some thing, some place, some person, or some activity, outside of me. 

The moment I begin to think beyond myself, I am now connected to something bigger than me. I start to feel smaller, in the best possible way, as my problems also start to feel smaller. 

It is a reason I believe being in nature is so therapeutic and peaceful. Staring out at the ocean, looking at tall mountains or over vast fields and forests, the horizon and landscape becomes so wide, beyond my eyes can see, that it feels endless. It is endless.

When I start to pay attention to what’s happening around me, I naturally start to calibrate my experience in relation to some reality that I am now taking in. Otherwise, I will calibrate my experience in relation to some fantasy that I have built in my mind.

The process of asking ‘what’s in it for me’ is the process of building up expectations in my mind. And as my father would always tell my sister and I growing up, expectations and disappointment are linked together. The Gita, the spiritual text from yoga philosophy, teaches us to be attached to the effort and not the outcome. In other words, the cliche journey versus destination.

Flipping the unconscious question of ‘what’s in it for me?’ on its head to ‘what am I ready to give?’ is the practice of me learning to focus on the effort I put in, versus the results I receive.

For example, when I started to meditate, I never asked myself what am I going to get from it. I did ask myself ‘what am I ready to give to it’, and the answer was to commit a few minutes each day. And ten years later, that has continued.

Another example, taking a new job. If the lens is purely ‘what am I going to get from it?’, I don’t think one will actually feel very satisfied as there is always going to be some feeling of disappointment, which then turns into discouragement and leads to a lack of effort. If instead the focus is on ‘what am I going to give to it?’, that turns into effort, and that effort will take care of the results itself.

Or another example, starting or continuing a relationship, be it with a friend or romantic interest. If both people are focused on ‘what am I getting from this?’, the connection won’t go very far, for either person. Rather when the focus is on ‘what can I give this person?’, and to do it without expectation, the connection will feel rewarding and satisfying for both people. It is satisfying to give and it is satisfying to receive. Regardless of which role one is in at a given moment, it will be satisfying, provided the giving is without expectations.

And this is a key point. When the mindset shifts from getting to giving, it must be without added expectations. Giving with expectations of getting is not giving. It is another form of getting, in a roundabout way.

This understanding inspires me to turn off portrait mode and move through life in relation to my reality, versus to the exclusion of it.

And that is how I learned to (un)portrait mode.