This is a blog post about creativity, persistence, and acceptance.
Each and every one of us would probably get a eureka moment – a moment where everything seems to be crystal clear, where each and every facet of a theory or a solution is within reach. It seems like we have cracked a 100-year-old case and with it, we build a wonderful and meaningful idea…
Then, it’s time to execute.
Time and again, people have reached that roadblock, not of imagination, but of action. A roadblock full of what-ifs and fears of getting hurt, or worse, hurting someone else. Now let’s be more optimistic, shall we? How about a path where we have moved forward and tried, possibly failed a couple of times, but remained steadfast and moved further knowing that someday we will realize our idea and have or become what we have imagined? It is good, it is wonderful, actually.
Then came the moment where we need to generate an idea again. An idea so critical at that time, that we need to make sure we get one more in order to move on with our life. Days, months, maybe years would go by and we couldn’t seem to have the same fantastic idea again. What now – die young and be happy, or live long and be miserable? Are there really two states of life that will forever be the reason for us to exist in this world? Is there really no middle ground? Do people really have to be miserable first to be happy after reaching their standards of success? To make matters worse, do people have to make other people miserable in order for them to have that idea that they consider as their own?
I am sitting now in front of my laptop at 11 PM. My husband and kids are sleeping and I just couldn’t sleep thinking of how my day went and how my ideas today helped people around me. I came across beautiful and inspiring stories, but the bad ones always keep me thinking. I have read so many messages and comments from my followers and they inspired me to write this post about how I move on with my life, creating and seeing the beauty in a lot of things. All these I hope will not make other people hurt or simply annoyed.
I am still in that stage where I think of other people. My husband tries to put it in a way that I am just too kind and I empathize a lot, and that’s why he thinks I am good in relating with people. I guess I am just fueled by crazy ideas which I have always kept to myself before. Why? Because I will always tell myself that it is crazy and so outside the norm that I will probably just fail.
I am just so blessed that when I met my husband, he has crazier ideas than I do. He would just encourage me to do whatever I want and just try and see where it leads to. From having the courage to resign from my first job even if my parents think it may look bad on me, he assured me that nothing bad will happen, to finally resigning from my second job and focusing on being a full-time mother. From being a breastfeeding advocate where I would even travel to just to give my milk to other families needing it, to being super domesticated in living in a different country. From asking my husband for help if I can become a financial advisor, to forming a healthy holistic living group, to becoming a professional organizer. It is really this craziness that made me who I am today. Never in my wildest dreams would I come to realize that I will have the courage to open up my world to everyone through social media or videos.
Don’t get me wrong, it was never an easy journey; I learned a lot from the uphill climb and even from the minor progress that never seems to make me move from point A to point B. But my husband never said NO, rather, he said GO. So I remained persistent and aware of how I need to do things. And now, the realization that matters to me the most is that I am getting to know who I really am. I really appreciate knowing who I am for the first time, not entirely I guess, but little by little I see what’s right from wrong, what’s good from bad. The best part of it is that these realizations are not what I think other people consider but rather, what my versions of right, wrong, good, and bad are. It’s very liberating.
In my line of work as a professional organizer, a financial advisor, a holistic health advocate, and most importantly a homemaker, there’s only one thing in common: that is to make people feel more secure, taken care of, loved, and most importantly listened to. It begs the question of what else I can do to make people around me feel better. How else can I help? Have I given enough and move forward with whatever plans I have, or should I learn to accept what I have now and tell people to do the same so that we move on with our lives contented? Let me try to answer these realizations by breaking it down to three sets of questions.
How does creativity help or inspire other people?
A lot of people might think that there is already an obvious answer to this question, given the fact that we stand on the creative thinking of people’s shoulders when they invented the computer, the light bulb, the wheel, even religion, politics, banking, and machines that literally go out of this world! But I am more or less looking at the minor things. A little girl making her first painting and showing it to her dad, a thirty-something single mom showing the world how she makes an excellent tasting version of chocolate souffle, an executive who finally learned how to play the piano, a septuagenarian who learned how to dance even with her aching legs and realizing how movements are beautiful, or a father of three who has built a successful career but realized the wonders of writing and expressing his thoughts. My point is we don’t have to move the entire world for our creativity to matter. We have to learn how to accept change and deal with its repercussions in order to build on one beautiful thing on top of another. The idea that people would always subscribe to is – do whatever makes you happy. But the reality is that you don’t live alone and there should always be a follow-on idea: that is to do whatever makes you, and probably another single human being, happy.
What I learned from the year that has passed, is not about how good I am on something, but that whatever I do, someone will appreciate it for what it is. And with that, I am grateful. But more importantly, I accept that for someone to appreciate what I do, is for me to realize that I have changed her, hopefully for the better. That’s why I keep this blog. It’s a channel for me to explain the many things I have shared in limited words or in one post.
How do we move forward and help each other? Grow within a community.
I mentioned earlier an idea about acceptance. For me, without this, actively growing a community will be cautiously slow. By understanding yourself and accepting who you are and how you can better yourself, you will find the peace of mind that everything will be alright.
I am honestly very concerned that depression is becoming more common now, either that or it is just now that people are coming out and telling the world that indeed it is a serious disease that no one will even wish for their worst enemy. With the pressures that we have now to be better, more beautiful, come up with wonderful content, or be outstanding in so many different things, it seems that just thinking of all these is overwhelming, something that we are not built for. That’s why acceptance for me is something very, very important or a requirement to move forward with a lot of things, including our life. Once that first critical step is achieved, I have learned that nobody can actually live alone. Yes, we may have our families, our core group of friends, and even the people who work with or for us, but the concept of living in a community is about understanding that your action affects a lot of people and not just people who surround you.
So the next step is about having your guiding principles. You can call it morals or belief. To me, it’s as simple as doing what you want other people to do to you or even to your family. With that, we build a community that supports each other rather than put others down. This is something which I hope is powerful enough to reduce depression in our community.
How would we know when to stop or take a different course? What is the idea of balance?
Think about this – you are driven by a great idea that you will do anything to make you achieve your goal. You accepted yourself and learned that everything you plan for is the right thing to do. Then suddenly, you realized, you are wrong! What? How can that happen? How did I not see this coming?
We may not know the answers to these questions, but there is one thing that people, even from way back in our history, have been trying to be in a state of – a state of balance. Why? To most, by achieving that perfect balance you get to see what’s coming around you, you get to consider everything because right at that moment you are present in all things. To me, balance is like riding a bike, if you do not move forward, it’s hard to find balance.
Much like in life, balance is almost always achievable at a single point in time, then everything else around you will change which causes you to be biased with one direction more than the others. So the practical way is just knowing where you are at. Ask questions about yourself, and be humble that even in moving forward you still need help to realize you are wrong. The humility of asking questions about one’s mistakes or needs for improvement is so beautiful because it keeps us grounded knowing that we are just human who make mistakes and who live another day being better, fixing and getting our lives back together. Ask the people you trust who will tell you when you are wrong, and be the best version of yourself by listening and internalizing.
Now these questions may be answered differently by different people. I’m sharing this to the world now, not for me to make perfect sense, but for me to be heard, be understood, and become another spark of joy that everyone seems to be needing most these days.
Goodnight Neatropolis, I’m not sure when I’m publishing this, but as always – it’s a good day today!
NEAT OBSESSIONS 