Tag: creativity

Happiness is overrated

Neera

Why is everyone so obsessed with being happy?

Why can’t we accept that happiness is a feeling which comes and goes just like sadness, anger, love, and frustration?

None of these feelings last forever, not even love.

Why would happiness?

How many of us have stayed in a state of bliss forever? We all have experienced joy from time to time, but it disappears. Then we are back to our default state, whatever that is for each one of us. For many of us, it is melancholy.

Some of us are happy, being sad.

So much so that we try to hide our happiness because we are too afraid that misery is just around the corner, waiting to step in as soon as she finds the door ajar.

Often we blame circumstances for our unhappiness, while happiness is an inner state of mind and is independent of outer conditions. Many people have turned their grief into creative pursuits and created something beautiful out of their unhappiness.

Elizabeth Gilbert just released a new book, ‘City of Girls’ that she wrote in the grieving months just after her partner’s death.

Red Symons’(an Australian comedian) son, had brain cancer at four. At that time, the famous show ‘Hey Hey Saturday’ featuring Red Symons had just started. Red used comedy as a relief to deal with the blow of fate. He decided to stay happy and live life no matter what fate had thrown at him.

After spending a year in search of happiness, Gretchen Rubin wrote in her book ‘The Happiness Project,’

“It’s about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work, but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world.”

She says:

“When I find myself focusing too much on the anticipated future happiness of arriving at a certain goal, I remind myself to ‘Enjoy now’. If I can enjoy the present, I don’t need to count on the happiness that is (or isn’t) waiting for me in the future.”

The fact is we are guilty of inviting unhappiness into our lives. There are three reasons for that.

  1. Our belief system. We think that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish. To get the glory, we act unhappy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly light-hearted. It’s easier to complain than to laugh, easier to yell than to joke around, easier to be demanding than to be satisfied.” Meaning being happy is a lot of work, while being sad is easy. As Seth Godin puts it, “Doom is inevitable, gloom is optional.”
  2. Our paradox of expectations. We want to change ourselves, but we also want to accept ourselves for what we are. We want to be merry-go-lucky, but we also want to take ourselves seriously. We want to be disciplined, but we also want to wander, play, and read at whim. We are always on the edge of agitation; we want to let go of envy and anxiety, yet keep our energy and ambition. What we don’t get is we can do anything we want, but not everything we want.
  3. Our occupation. For the last four centuries, we have abandoned creativity from our lives. In 1600, before the industrial revolution, everyone lived their creativity when there were no proper jobs. A bread-maker baked bread, a seamstress sewed clothes, a blacksmith made tools, and a cobbler made shoes. They all worked with their hands to create something that provided them with a living and gratification from their work.

Today most of the jobs are left-brain jobs. Jobs consisting of following processes, solving problems, and working in the assembly line. They might pay well, but they don’t bring the satisfaction the creative work brings. 

No wonder in survey after survey, most people express their desire to quit their jobs to do something they are passionate about. They are seeking contentment from their work, which comes from creativity.

Being creative is being happy, and being happy is being creative.

Most people are happiest when they are engrossed in a creative activity.

Creativity doesn’t belong to artists, but it exists in every field. A farmer can be as creative as a mason or a hotel receptionist who makes her guest feel welcome in a creative way.

To invite happiness into your life, change your beliefs, lower your expectations, and be creative.

Cherry blossoms and change of some rules

Neera

Here are the things I find worth sharing this week.

  1. My post about a scientific, fail-proof method to study and retain complex and lengthy material was introduced by no other than Tony Buzan.
  2. A note on how unforgiving and overdisciplined we have become.
  3. I have always believed that having a linear goal at every stage of life is as important as breathing fresh air and eating healthy food. You can survive in pollution and on unhealthy meals, but the quality of life is not the same. Ann Rand was an author much ahead of her time; that might be one reason she is my favorite.
  4. Creativity can be found anywhere. Even in the dog’s pooh. I have yet to see a more colorful place than Valparaiso, where residents hire street artists to paint murals on the outer walls of their houses.
  5. November is approaching fast. In three weeks and three days, many of us are going to have sleepless nights, early mornings, and social boycotts to take part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). An international internet-based writing initiative started in 1999 from humble beginnings where a few people got together to write a novel in a month. In 2005, it became a non-profit organization. This year over 400,000 people world-wide are expected to write 50,000 words in thirty days.

I have been participating in the initiative since 2012 and won it twice. Winning or not winning I will participate again this year to write a non-fiction book that has been lurking in the background ever-since I started this blog. You will hear about it more next month.

This week I changed some rules. First, I started posting every day (to put more pressure on me). Second, I reduced the number of things I share through the newsletter from ten to five (to reduce the pressure on my readers and myself). I thought ten new things every weekend are a bit too much for everyone. I would like to hear what you think. Drop me a line in the comments section below.

If you like this newsletter and my blog and want to support it, forward it to a friend.

Unforgiving and overdisciplined

Neera

How unforgiving and over-disciplined we have become?

We not only can’t forgive others but also ourselves.

We are harsher on ourselves than we are on others. We judge and punish ourselves if we think that we have not done what we expected to do. We deprive ourselves of the kindness we preach ourselves to offer to others.

We berate ourselves over not being able to write well, write regularly, build an audience, summon our muse, or be good enough when all the time learning, getting better, and not giving up.

We are killing ourselves with the discipline we impose on ourselves. What to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, when to sleep, how much to sleep, how much exercise to do, how many words to write in a day, what goals to set, and how challenging they should be.

All these aspirations are not making us any more creative. They are, in fact, killing our creativity.

With all the advances in the twenty-first century, we have not freed the human spirit. Instead, we have imprisoned it to fulfill our wants. And wants never end. They keep on becoming bigger and bigger.

How about waking up from this delusion and liberating ourselves? Be kind to ourselves. Let go of the pressure of performance, productivity, and achievement, and let the mind wander freely into the realm of true creativity.

Coastal beauty

Neera

Last weekend, I was on the southern coast of Australia. The stretch of the coast between New South Wales and Victoria is called the Sapphire Coast, where the color of the ocean is deeper than the sapphire, and the sky is just a shade lighter.

At the heart of the Sapphire Coast is the sleepy town of Merimbula, which has a long point for whale watching and a short point for surfing.

The vast stretch of wilderness, national parks, and ocean teeming with life attracts lots of artisans and is home to lots of galleries, public art, and boutiques.

In the above shot, I was trying to capture a flying helicopter when a seagull flew across. It came right in the center of the frame.

Below is a sculpture by the beach.

Share something every day

Neera

Two months into the blog and I am feeling the need to post every day. Not because I have lots to say, but because the opposite is true.

Coming up with something to share is a constant struggle for bloggers. Something I need to tackle head-on.

Today Austin Kleon came up with the post. Put it on the refrigerator. He is referring to a quote from a 2002 Jeff Tweedy interview. The full quote is here:

“To say I’ve never been inhibited by expectations would be a lie. It’s more daunting to contend with yourself. It’s like saying I don’t even need to write songs because the greatest songwriter in the world has already done this–Bob Dylan. But he’s dealing with himself, too. The internal stuff is the stuff that kills you. I want to write the greatest song in the world sometimes. I don’t think there’s anything wrong in wanting to do that, but I think you’re better off when you realize you have no control over it. You just gotta keep making s–t up, scribbling–like sitting down and drawing with my kids. It reminds me to do that in my songs. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad.”   

It is every artist’s responsibility to keep making the s–t up. And to do that every day. That is the only way to get better. That is the only way to find some nuggets in your work.

An artist’s other responsibility is to put their work out there. Worrying for your best work, and waiting till you get better won’t make you better. Putting your work out there, however amateurish, most certainly will.

I am setting this challenge for myself now, to start daily blogging, fully aware of the fact that there will be days when I cannot post anything, particularly when I will be traveling.

But I will tackle those days when I get there. 

Take the pressure off you

Neera

I read the following story in “O’s Little Guide to Finding Your True Purpose” and couldn’t help sharing it.

A friend had an Indian guru who was the embodiment of love, and the guru died. Bereft, my friend, went back to India and stayed with the guru’s principal disciple, and one day the disciple said, “Do you want to see the precious thing the guru left for me?” Then he pulled out something wrapped in an old Indian cloth and ceremoniously uncovered a beaten-up pot. He said, “Do you see?” My friend answered. “No. What are you trying to tell me?” And with a mad glint in his eye, the disciple said, “You don’t have to shine!”

What a great idea! You don’t have to shine.

We have such high expectations of ourselves all the time. Whatever we do, we want to be top-class in it.

We want to write a perfect story in the first draft. We expect our very first blog to be amazing.

We want to dress perfectly, work effortlessly, speak fluently, and so on.

What if we take the pressure off ourselves and just be ourselves?

Mediocre but daring; inept but forgiving; troubled but enduring.