Below is an excerpt from an entry from the Productive Flourishing blog that talks about the difference between being busy, creative, and productive.
Before reading this entry, I never really put any thought as to the difference between the three. The post by guest author Ali Hale makes some great points that really resonate with me.
Busyness is antithetical to creativity. If you’ve ever tried to force creativity, you’ll know this. Chances are, you can push onwards, cramming your creative work into thin slices of time, but it’s like driving with the handbrake on: it’s not doing you, or your work, any good.
So, after reading that post, I have decided not to be busy today, and just be creative. Because I don’t get enough of that. I’ve only been creative in small doses, which tends to annoy me. In fact, to me being creative is a necessity like breathing or eating. If I don’t do it, I get pent up and irritable.
I’ve been working on improving our quality of life. Figuring out how to simplify, in a world that’s just gone mad with busyness. It’s not an easy thing to do. I think we create all sorts of urgencies that really aren’t necessary. We have these “rules” in our minds of how things have to be, or how we have to live. To some people, breaking from that is “impossible” or just crazy. Although people don’t realize there is so much junk you can dump from your life, and still be fine.
I’ve experimented with this theory of “dumping” a few times. For example, my email inbox was full of “stuff I needed to do” or follow up on. Although a lot of this “stuff” were things that had been in my inbox for quite a while. So I selected all the messages, and deleted my whole inbox. Guess what? A black hole didn’t open up and swallow me into the dark abyss. Nor did a group of men wearing black suites, black ties, white button down shirts, and sunglasses knock on my door to take me away to some forsaken corner of the world and pummel me till I’m FUBAR.
As of late, I have had a few episodes where the insanity of modern life has irritated me so much, that I thought if it was possible to leave Earth and all the crapola behind, I would (of course I’d take my family with me).
Instead, I carry on. Although I need to get back to channeling all my negative energy into my art again. Somehow, I’ve lost that ability and I should regain it.
