Creativity is a Matter of Perspective

Creativity is when you can look at the same thing everyone else does and see something different.

What is it that makes one person different from another? Why did Benjamin Franklin look at lightning and think, “I wonder if I could capture that power somehow?” Most people were just enjoying or hiding from the light show and sitting by their candles in the house.

Is it about luck and being in the right place at the right time? Perhaps a little bit, but mostly it’s about training your brain to actually “see” what’s in front of you. For the same reason we can walk across a field and get highly annoyed at all the grass burrs that get caught on our socks, someone like George de Mestral starts thinking of possibilities and Velcro was created as a result.

So how do we train our brains to “see” what is in front of us? By setting our intentions for the day to be in a “grateful to be alive and open to the possibilities” mindset, we are more apt to notice things, see things from that slightly different view point that makes creativity possible and ever present.

How wonderful to sit and watch small children as they discover things for the first time. They aren’t prejudging what something is or does; they are reaching out for it, picking it up, or going in for a closer look. Once they find some secret – like the “jack” inside the box, or the pearl inside the oyster, their face fills with joy at the discovery.

How much more creative are we when we take the time to enjoy the sunrise, share a sunset with a friend or loved one, taste a new dish for the first time, read a book about a new subject, walk a different path, meditate or pray to calm the spirit, listen to a new kind of music, or travel to a new destination?

We train ourselves to see when we practice feeding our creative and spiritual aspects of ourselves. So do something different, don’t get upset whatever it is doesn’t go as first planned, just go with the flow and see how things turn out. Who knows what you might discover along the way.

Cherry Coley ©