to be creative or not to be creative

that is the question

It seems an age-old adage but when you are young, doesn't it seem like you can be anything you wanted? You could be a fairy tale princess who is also a dentist for plushy dinosaurs or an astronaut who puts on singing performances on Jupiter. That freedom, that magic, to believe you could really and truly do anything, well that was some kind of enchantment, wasn't it?

Then comes the teenage years where well-meaning adults start trying to pin you down on the sort of career you'll undertake. It is interesting that we ask sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds to make a concrete decision and to embark on a career that you foresee yourself doing for the next four to five decades until you retire and receive a pension. Not everyone has that laser-eyed focus to want to do the same thing for forty to fifty years, but those that do, that is truly admirable. Seriously, hats off to you.

As for my own trajectory, I ticked all the boxes that one is supposed to tick. I went to university, earned my degree, and started my entry-level job just like I was supposed to. It wasn't in my field that I received my degree in, but when you are fresh out of college and have to earn your own way, there are times when you have to take what you can get.

So that's what I did. I worked a job that after a few years, made me miserable. Is "soul-sucking" too harsh of a term? That is what it felt like. I didn't enjoy my job and I lived for Friday afternoons, when my shift ended for the week, and I could go home and not be bothered for 48 hours. Until of course on Monday morning, when the drudgery started up all over again.

I tried many times to leave my job and get another one, but the opportunities never panned out properly. One place in particular, said I was "over-qualified" which I never know what to do with, when it comes to that phrase. Too smart? Speaks in complete sentences too often? Isn't tardy enough? Ah, I digress. My point is, I did try to find new avenues of employment, but it just did not work out in the way I thought it would.

But I realize now, which I didn't realize at the time, is that those opportunities didn't pan out for me because I was never supposed to have them in the first place. For me to thrive and truly be me, I need to be creative and the job I currently had, as well as the jobs I was looking for, were the complete opposite of that. This is not a knock to my former employer at all, nor is it a knock to the employers whom I was interviewing with. It is just that the jobs and what they entailed and the whole "corporate atmosphere" were just not for me.

From a young age, I've always had this creative streak within me. I was always writing poems and songs and short stories, in a notebook, on scraps of paper, whatever I could get my hands on. I enjoyed arts and crafts and making things. I was one of those girls always rearranging my room, changing the furniture around, moving posters from this wall to that wall. I thought for a time I'd be an interior designer. I have always loved photography and taking photos in interesting ways (that is me and my arm in the photo above). I remember a short six-month stint of making my own earrings when I was a pre-teen. I moved on to making other things, as kids do, but I remember the satisfaction of making something and the pride I felt that came along with it.

There is no right or wrong when it comes to what you are interested in, and the solutions aren't always black and white. But what I have found, when speaking with creatives, is that this need to create is always within us and never really goes away. Even if our day job isn't quite what we wish were doing, we know that that is okay because on the weekends, that is our time to be free and paint canvases with beautiful brush strokes.

Or maybe your day job is exactly what you want to be doing and you actually do enjoy it and it allows you to pay for that photography class that you've had your eye on. That photography class that will help you take better photos for that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Italy that you've been saving up for, and you think maybe I'll start a travel blog, so that when I do retire, I'll have this to fill my creative spirit.

Whatever it is, that creativity, it is always there. We are all gifted with this beautiful magic inside of us. Words and colors and tricks of light, waiting to be explored. Our stories are within us waiting to be shared. Those vivid dreams of creative passion that are inside of you, they are there for a reason.

To be creative or to not be creative?

I think you know what the answer is...