One of the biggest fallacies people think is, “I’m not a creative person.” That is just not the truth. We are all creative. By definition, we are creation and we are co-creating to make this current world that we live in. People think creative people are just the artists or the musicians or the poets. But isn’t designing a car or coming up with a new scientific theorem or looking at a math problem at a different angle creative? On a micro-level, we are all creating our own individual lives. We don’t like to think like this because it forces a true level of self awareness. Life isn’t just “happening” to us. Yes, there are some forces outside of our control, but how we react to those forces is all on us.
I think what is good about the big “crossroads” moments in our lives, when the big changes happen, is that this self awareness of how much we do to create the lives that we live, really comes into focus. I read once that we should look at ourselves as our own life managers. How is your life manager doing? Would you give her a raise? Would you want to fire him? We create our lives from the minute we wake up to the moments we go to bed. The morning rituals that we have, whether we drink coffee or read the paper or hit the snooze button ten times are all of our own creations. What we do all day, how we react to people and situations, what we wear, how we decorate our living spaces are all of our own creations. The neighborhoods we choose to live in, the schools we send our kids to, how we interact with our kids and our spouses and our friends and our pets, again are our own daily creations. The foods we choose to cook and eat and nourish our bodies with are our choices and thus, our life creation. Finally, how many pillows we choose to sleep with, who we choose to sleep with, what temperature we set the thermostat to when we fall asleep is part of our life’s creation.
I’m currently reading a book/workbook called Design the Life You Love by Ayse Birsel. Ms. Birsel owns a design firm and has designed/redesigned all sorts of everyday items down to a toilet seat that she claims is the most comfortable toilet seat in the world! She says that most designing is really just redesigning. In the book, Ms. Birsel talks about the fact that to redesign something you have to break it down to its smallest component parts and then build it back up to a better design that better fits your current lifestyle. You can only reconstruct when you deconstruct. So, to deconstruct your life, you have to look at each component that makes up your daily experience. Family, Work, Friends, Hobbies, Interests, Health, etc. are all smaller components of what is comprising the totality of our lives. When you break your life down to these smaller parts, you can then look at the individual parts and think to yourself, “What’s working for me in this part of my life? What are small creative changes that I could make here that would make a difference in making my whole life more fulfilling?”
There are so many distractions in today’s world. It can be very confusing to understand what is best for yourself. I recently watched a movie called Ingrid Goes West. The heroine of the movie is Ingrid and she has absolutely no self concept. She stalks “internet celebrities” and tries to become them in order to get people to like her. Obviously, this plan backfires on her, but in the end, when she is totally alone and has no choice but to be authentically herself, acknowledging all of her own pain and fear, is when people reach out to her and truly relate to her and understand her. I think most of us confuse “creative” with “authentic”. We respond to people’s art or music or websites because we feel connected to the creator of the creation. The people we call creative are just responding to the deepest part of themselves that just can’t help but come out. It has to be shared because it feels like it is that person’s primal drive or need to create it for no other reason than the pure joy of creating it. We feel utterly inspired by seeing their creative process in action because deep down we know that we are creators, too. How many times have we heard an amazing artist or musician or writer or actor or businessman say that while they appreciate the accolades and external validation, the truth is they would be doing whatever they are doing for free, by themselves, in the middle of the woods, because it is their passion, their need, their desire, their creation, their authentic life???
Variety is the spice of life. I believe that with my whole heart. Life would be so boring if we were all the same. I think life would be even spicier if we let our varieties shine not just in big endeavors, but in the ways we choose to go about our daily habits. We are all creative. We are all creators and there is no better time than now to live our own authentic, true self lives every moment of every day.