All I know is that I know nothing.

 I love Australia and Australians. They're friendly, well-spoken, inclusive, laid-back, and love jokes. So, of course, I had to go back. I decided to go to Brisbane since I'd never been there before. It's a great city. I took many images, had a blast jet skiing on the Brisbane River, and took public transportation, yet I barely scratched the surface of this wonderful city that will host the Summer Olympics in 2032. 

I flew from Phoenix to LAX, had a short layover, and boarded a Delta flight direct to Brisbane, only 14 1/2 hours away. I slept some, and as we collected our luggage after landing, I said a few words to my seatmates and learned that the gent in the middle seat was an editor and his wife in the window seat was an artist! I realized that we could have had a rousing conversation if I had bothered to ask my question in LA instead of Brisbane. I asked for his top recommendation gleaned from an entire career. He smiled and said, "Don't self-edit." 

It was quite a blow since I seldom have someone looking over my shoulder as I select, edit, curate, and organize my work. I mulled it over as I shuffled through customs and immigration, collected my luggage, and headed to the train to the city. 

Fast-forward several weeks, and I was back home, assembling the Brisbane portfolio and curating the images to make the final cut. I seldom look at statistics, but I decided to take a quick peek and see what the most popular images in the portfolio were thus far. 

To my utter chagrin and horror, in curating the portfolio (I had taken over 3,700 images), I had already deleted the most popular image, which had garnered twice the views of the next most popular image! That's when the remark by my seatmate from LA came back to me with inescapable clarity: "Don't self-edit!" 

Hmm. Did he really mean it?