The temptation to constantly document everything that’s seemingly important so we can relive it later is powerful. I love my iPhone camera but I hold smartphones mostly responsible for this worrisome phenomena. People who never shot photographs before they had a smartphone now shoot photographs all the time.

You don’t have to photograph everything. You don’t have to take your camera everywhere. Just because you always have a camera within arm’s reach doesn’t mean you have to use it all the time. You don’t have to beat up on yourself if your camera battery goes dead; it happens. You don’t need to feel compelled to scramble for a camera every time your daughter holds your mother’s hand; that’s a great photograph to be sure but sometimes it’s okay to simply watch and be grateful that all three of you are in the same room. Not visually recording a precious moment can be a source of inner peace. It’s a moment; you can choose to live it and not photograph it.

I heard a George Clooney interview on the radio last year. He was traveling with a friend by motorcycle in the Italian Alps. They came to a village and saw a small restaurant open for lunch. They stopped and went in. By the time they were finished, a small crowd had gathered outside. Word travels fast in the digital age.

Clooney has long ago come to grips with the price of fame. This was not the first time he had faced this situation and he has chosen to handle it graciously. He puts a smile on his face and extends a hand of friendship to strangers.  The reaction he occasionally gets is unexpected.

Some people, attempting to photograph him with a smart phone, back away. They would rather photograph him then shake his hand.  Clooney thinks this says something less than positive about the world we live in. He is well aware of the human disconnect here. Cameras and smartphones and the desire to record everything have come between us and a willingness to live life to its fullest, he said. There was sadness in his voice.

Maybe the key to whether or not you photograph a situation lies in what you think you’re going to do with the photograph afterwards.

If you’re grabbing for the camera out of habit than perhaps it’s a habit that needs to be broken.

Maybe you need to set a higher criteria for yourself for when you pull the camera out and when you leave the camera alone. Just because you’re at a birthday party and someone is blowing out candles doesn’t mean you need to let the presence of electronics dictate your reaction.

You need to give yourself a break. You need to release the pressure a little bit. If you need permission then, like the Wizard of Oz, I give it to you.

It’s okay to leave the camera at home. It’s okay to live your life without recording it. Go watch your daughter kiss your mother.

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