My Dad is a quiet man. My longest phone conversation with him lasted 7 minutes, and I regularly chat with strangers for up to two hours at a clip. While growing up, Mom did the cooking. Dad rode his epic lawnmower around the yard: headlights on, engines firing, guttural race car noises barely audible over the drone of the tractor.
At Thanksgiving last year, Dad threw his fork down and declared, “I HATE MASHED POTATOES.” I have seen the man eat three helpings of mashed potatoes at every major holiday meal I can recall having attended. The guy pounds the potatoes back like a faux-Irishman with a yard of green beer on St. Patty’s Day.
“Oh,” Mom sighs. “Anything else?”
“I hate HAM, too.”
They’ve been married for twenty-nine years. It took twenty-nine years for Dad to admit to not liking mashed potatoes AND ham. (Like I said, he’s quiet.)
Please please, don’t let your dislikes lead to an angry-yet-hilarious encounter twenty-nine years from now.
Just admit it: I hate ________________.
Where X = shooting weddings, holding sales sessions, editing photos, taking out the trash, cleaning closets, Twitter, Facebook, or…ham. Then do your best to work the stuff you hate out of your business and into the hands of people who love ______. (I would totally have eaten Dad’s share of the mashed potatoes with unbridled glee. And he could have had my cranberry sauce.)
Thanks for this. I finally told myself last week that I was NOT going to take anymore weddings. (I’ve only ever done a handful, and really don’t enjoy it.) And then, temptation creeps in, an email from one of my Facebook “friends” saying they just got in engaged, and I think of how much I *need* the kind of money a wedding brings in. But it’s not my passion, I don’t excel at it, and I loathe the kind of work that goes into it (before, during, after). It’s OK for me to just focus on kids/family portraits. It’s ok! <–repeating for my own sake.
Sometimes we just need a little permission… Thanks!!!
(p.s. I hate Quickbooks and large family portraits so I’m hiring an accountant and focusing my attention on weekday elopements instead)
What a great post, Kristen! Just what I needed to hear.
I hate when people ask for freebies and expect them. I hate large groups [more than 3] sessions [although I like weddings]. I hate cooking every day [that is why I did not do it last night
]… what else? I hate not knowing the next step I must take in my life.
Thanks for the permission… I might just make it “I Hate [it]” day!