Face card

I was working on a freelancer job today. The task was very simple. At least it appeared to be simple. But it wasn't simple. I realised only when I started doing it.

The task involved three distinct steps. First step was to scan a government provided identity card. Second task was to scan a photo of myself. The third task was to take a selfie. On 3 task appeared very simple when I went through the job description. I immediately took it thinking that it will give me quick and easy money. But there was one catch. The photos in all three should match.

I started doing the task. Scanning was government approved photo identity card was very simple. I completed that in 1 minute. Them came the slightly complicated task. Scanning a second photo of myself. Here the challenge was that my face in the recent photos was not matching with the government approved identity card photo. So to make the photo match I was going through plethora of the pictures that I had taken from my phone camera. I had to use at least 30 to 40 pictures so that the face matches.

The third and the last task was the most tedious one. Taking a selfie and matching it with the remaining to photos. I tried taking the selfie 50-60 times but my face was not matching with the previous two photos. Now let me tell you I hadn't applied any filter in the previous two photos and neither I was using of filter while taking the selfie. All photos were natural without any alteration or edit. But my face was not matching. First I thought it was strange. It's my face in all three pictures but then why it was not matching. I got frustrated because my phone's battery was running out and the time that I had been given for the task was also running out. With these my patience too was running out. If I cannot complete the task in the given time, then that would look my profile bad on the freelancing portal. That is why I was anxious and annoyed.

After the time got over and I was not able to submit the task I was sitting in front of my laptop. I was looking at 3 photos of myself. This is when I realised something. There was nothing wrong with the camera. There was nothing wrong with the task that I was supposed to do. There was nothing wrong with anything. The main culprit was the time.

The first photo in the government approved photo identity card was taken when I was 22 years old. My recent photo was approximately 15 years after that. And my selfie was taken today when my face is swollen, there are dark circles and bags under my eye. The reason is the shift in the hormones. I could clearly see that these three photos belong to my face but they were not matching. No tool was required to figure that out because I could see that with my naked eyes.

This is when I accepted the reality. It is not that I am inefficient or incompetent. It is my face that had gone through the tough times. I cannot stay young forever. Everyday I am going to age a little. There will be an additional wrinkle on my face which will appear after every few days. There will be fine lines and smiling lines which would not be pressing in the photo when I was 22 years old. Aging is a part of life and task like this is going to remind me of that. I would look nothing like what I was 15 years ago.

So I am not incompetent but I am just getting older and wiser.