Quit Living and Start LIVING

One of the biggest killers of creativity is “the real world”…we get bogged down in this world we have created full of mindless work, mundane activities, and lack of physical and mental exercise.

The only thing that spurs creativity is change. When you read a new book, read an interesting blog post, get challenged by someone else’s ideas, see a new movie, eat at a new place, hike a new trail, sit by the ocean and breathe it in, listen to new music, or try a new activity is when your brain is forced to push the boundaries currently set up.

I remember back when I lived in Kentucky and worked in a factory, it was one of the least creative periods in my life…factory work nearly killed me!

My thought is that most of us are doing “factory” work…sure, we’re doing stuff…we’re selling that house, painting that house (in my case), designing that website, collecting that trash, and doing that paperwork…but seriously, does any of that matter?

Yes, it does to some degree and I’m not here to debate the degree. What I’m talking about is satisfaction and fulfillment. People generally get satisfaction when they love what they do and some people may very well love their “factory” job but if they do it’s probably because they found a way to have it mean something to them to their core. In that case though, they found a way to have that be important and fulfilling to them.

I’m referring to the fact that most people do not feel happy and passionate about what they do, which in turn, kills desire, drive, motivation, and creativity. THAT is what needs to be fixed!

Should everyone be passionate about what they do? Can everyone be? The answers are no, it won’t happen. All I am doing is trying to impact those that are on the cusp…those that may find these words that I’m choreographing in this article. Are they put together in such a way that makes you think?

And this ties in with my point…there are two things that get me over the top super amped; one is social media and the endless amazement I find (mainly the people) via its tools everyday and second…attempting to help people in any way that I have the power to. That may be through connecting two people that can be of value to one another, it may be through my thoughts and writings, it may be from a motivational status update I put on Facebook. This is not “factory work”, this is what and who I am.

I found a place I feel I belong. I now have tools at my disposal (my blog- a place to publish my thoughts, and things like Facebook and Twitter to spread them) that allow me to work toward these things that get me out of the factory mentality and into a place of attempting to do social good and work on my life project (or legacy).

And that’s what I want for you. Life in the factory (figuratively and literally) can provide an okay life, but the factories are falling by the wayside. We live in an idea time, a creativity time. If you want that new restaurant you opened to succeed…you need to be creative. If you want that new wine tasting room you opened to succeed you have to be creative. We can blame the economy or whatever else is convenient but my thought is that we are simply at another shift in our country, heck even internationally. I am not sure what they’ll call this but we had an Industrial Revolution and now, maybe it’s the Idea Revolution or the Creative Revolution or the Social Revolution.

There are problems that need solving: education, economy, unemployment, and government reform…is your factory (again, factory meaning literally a factory or the mental factory you work in) job going to solve these issues? No. We are in a new time of Occupy movements, the Arab Spring, internet and social media revolutions…whether you are for or against does not matter…this IS where we ARE.

And we need creative people to step out from the factory mentality and find something they are super passionate about fixing or solving and do it. What’s your cause? What pisses you off? What are you waiting for?

There has never been a better time in the history of the world to be a creative, outside the box thinker…and we are in a time that needs that badly. So if you’re passionate about coffee and the art of coffee making than be a barista or if you’re passionate about ending hunger than get to it.

Even if you sit at home and start expressing your creatively original thoughts and ideas on how to fix something and post it to a blog…that’s better than sitting on the couch eating Fritos and watching mindless hours of crap on television. You choose your legacy!

What’s it going to be?