Dear LPG,

This time last year I wrote to LPG and they very kindly posted my message on midsummers day, which I was also keen to point out, doubled as the eighth celebration of National Selfie Day. These days many of the youngsters among us take them more readily when they meet with their friends, family, sports heroes and musical idols but, if you read what I had to say last year you will know that I think that there is another really important kind of selfie.

Last year I requested that readers each take a selfie of their own face as a record of how they looked at that time and now I would ask, ‘Did you do it?’  If you did you need to do it again today and if you did not, it is never too late to get started.  We are so lucky these days because taking a picture is not the long-winded task that it used to be before so many aspects of sight and sound were all brought together in the technological magic of the mobile phone.

Well it’s time to snap again and, if you now have two pictures, you can look at the start of your own personal pictorial story.  With the help of the very instant results that we all expect these days you can now compare this year’s you with last year’s version.  Try to recreate last year’s picture this year which, I hope, was not one of those passport type pictures where you have to have your hair behind your ears and take your glasses off, you do need to be kinder to yourself than that, but if you are able to be standing or sitting in the same place as you were last year, you may well find yourself with a similar mind-set, which is more than likely to reflect on your face as  you know it; and you will remember more than you think about the circumstances that surrounded last year’s picture.  It is frighteningly surprising how quickly those 365 days pass by.

You are lucky because, you know all about the face you are seeing and, unlike the assumptions you can get when you see other people’s pictures, there is no guessing involved when you see yourself (is there?). 

Remember when you look, that you should not be depressing yourself by worrying about the extra line that you can see next to your left eye or the wrinkle that has got a bit deeper near the right side of your mouth.  More important is, if you are still content with your life, or if you are any happier with the way you look this year as opposed to last year.  It should all be echoed right there.  In short, I strongly believe that you should be able to see all the occurrences that you have been through reflected on your own face.

If you keep a diary, I suggest that you slip your pictures in the appropriate pages because this time next year I will try my very best to get LPG to remind you to do it again. 

Only you really know what you go through during each passing year so you will also be able to see if any of it has left a metaphorical scar or two on your face. 

You may decide that you have changed for the worst in your opinion, but yours is not the only opinion that matters, the people that you are closest to can see your face as you will never see it, but they will see it change gradually while you will have a sort of ‘time-lapsed’ record of who you are and how you got there.

For the past five years, until I discovered National Selfie Day, I used to do this on my birthday because, even though there are usually many occasions where we are part of a bigger picture, there is often not enough detail of individual faces for you to really be able to see how you have changed.

It really is an interesting way to celebrate National Selfie day.

HW, Catford.