Ever noticed how violent some photography words are? Like capture, frame, shoot?

Don’t get me wrong. Photography is one of my hobbies, and I like composing a good image and goggling at beautiful galleries as much as the next person. Maybe even more.

But especially in this age of social media, of iPhones and Instagram, I think photography can be overdone.

This week has been really busy for me. Besides being a writer who has less than 100 days until the publication of her second book (eep!), I also work as an editor and an English tutor. All of these jobs were chugging away at full blast this week, leaving me pretty tired.

Sometimes you have to choose between taking pictures and enjoying experiences–between looking happy and being happy. Sometimes you just don’t have the time or energy to do both.

This week, I chose being happy. So this post has no pictures. There are no photographs of the moments of rest and smiles I found this week. Because I was busy enjoying them.

Like a melty, gooey chocolate chip cookie in the afternoon.

Or the moves I make when I’m enjoying the stretchiness of yoga pants.

Like my first pumpkin spice latte of the season.

Or a floor full of beautiful pictures as I sit planning with my illustrator.

Like a well-placed comma finding its way into a manuscript.

Or a friend who watches in amazement at the melding colors of M&Ms melting into a bowl of vanilla ice cream.

We can spend so much time trying to capture, frame, shoot our moments, forever preserving them like scientific specimens in formaldehyde, that sometimes we–I, at least–forget to actually live them, enjoy them.

And sometimes it’s nice to take a break from the shutter button for exactly that purpose.