Preserving Your Personal History: Does the Delete Button Have the Power to Change the Past?

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Bad hair day? Delete. Less than flattering picture? Delete. With the click of a button, we can change what our past looks like to future generations. But should we?

Digital technology has given us the option to take unlimited photos, and then delete the ones we don’t want quickly and easily. For the most part, I love that I’m able to do this! You’ll find a number of posts written by me discussing the importance of deleting the digital photos you don’t need. After all, we have more photos now than we know what to do with. And it’s easy to let them pile up on our computers, if we don’t make a conscious effort to stay organized.  But too many photos slow our computers down, makes it harder to find a special photo that we need when we need it, and honestly, I feel like keeping too many photos gives them less meaning as well. But that’s a topic for another day.

Today, however, I want you to consider keeping some of those photos that you would normally delete. 

If you go back and look through your old printed photos, you’ll find some pretty funny ones.  You know, the ones with the bad haircuts, ridiculous outfits, and of course the “bloopers” like the time you came out of the bathroom with toilet paper trailing behind you! In years past, we kept all of our photos…today we tend to delete any picture that is less than perfect, leaving a slightly skewed record of reality. I’m just as guilty of this as the next person.

But tonight when I was looking back through some of the pictures my husband and I saved from our college days, I found a number of them that I probably would have deleted today. There were a few real gems in there! I have a feeling our kids (and grandkids) are going to have some fun going through them someday. Interestingly enough, the one I was trying to find has been misplaced…it’s a photo of myself and a friend with licorice up our noses. No clue what possessed us to do that (but she’ll probably be glad when she sees it’s not in this post).

But here’s some I did find.

Now that’s a flattering look…

Is that a picture of me taped to my now husband, then boyfriend’s shirt? And a cone on his head? That was funny, because why?

You need a lot of air to blow all those candles out!

That’s me on the far right with the bad hair

I’ve got lots more where these came from….some of which will remain away from inquiring eyes for years to come!

My point is though, these photos are part of my story. If I had tossed them because of the way I looked, well, then, my kids wouldn’t be hearing the stories that went with those photos, and a part of my history would be lost. (Plus I wouldn’t be providing them with some comic relief).

I’m not telling you to keep all your digital photos. I’m still a big advocate for deleting what you don’t need. But consider saving some of the “bloopers”…they are, after all, a part of your personal history!