Showing posts with label action. Show all posts
Showing posts with label action. Show all posts

Wednesday, 26 October 2011

What is Creativity?

"What is Creativity?" is one of the questions I get asked the most. My answer is always simple: it is thinking without boundaries. Yes, I know there are a lot more precise, eloquent, and more correct answers out there but I never said or pretend to be anything but simple.

For me creativity is about letting loose. Everyone does this in their own way. Everyone sees the world differently, hears the space around us a bit different, tastes things that no one else can taste, feels the earth spin in their own unique way, and describes their environments in their own terms.

At least the above descriptions hold true until we get to a certain age; A certain age where we have to "behave". At some point in all of our lives we have been "shhhed" or given the glance that tells us that is not appropriate. For some of us unlucky ones perhaps we even got a gentle kick in the shin or a slight pinch on the arm when we have asked to many questions, or have spoken to loudly, or maybe even out of turn.

So we grow up and somewhere along the way after all of this squashing of our enthusiasm and our vigor to learn and ask questions we stop asking. We conform, we begin to wait our turn, we begin to say things we think others want us to say.

Creativity for me is about every once in awhile letting loose in whatever you feel comfortable doing it. Creativity does not have to be an amazing ART piece, or some aww inspiring design that you have concocted. It can be the way you tie your shoes, it can be wearing sandals until the snow hits, it can be about how you say good morning. Creativity is about finding a few things in you that you do just for yourself and that you do that some might even think is a little bit different. I mean imagine one day if you just decided to only write with a pack of crayons that you bought the night before and that you wouldn't stop writing with that pack of crayons until they were all used up? Would it be the end of the world? What if instead of making the same chicken meal you make every night you decided to go to the grocery store and buy everything and anything you have never ate in your life and tried making a dinner out of that?

My main argument for all of this is people (myself included) can sometimes be boring. So why don't you challenge yourself to just once colour outside of the lines and see what happens? Does the world fall apart?


Don't get stuck in life, be creative:




STORYTIME:

This post was inspired from a rather interesting situation I got to observe.

Imagine 7 in the morning standing in line at the grocery store in the middle of October. Yes that is right it is dark out, there is almost no one else in the store, and there is definitely not a whole lot of noise. When all of a sudden this beautiful voice belts out "Good Morning, you are here to check out and I am just the lady for you." This kind of singing certainly woke everyone up who was in the store and put a smile on everyones face.
Behind the cash one of the elderly ladies who was working said that she always sings her good mornings and sings her customers through the line because it is so early and that often she has been in the store for so many hours that she too needs to have a bit of fun.
It was amazing to see everyone in the store react so positively to this wonderful older lady who certainly was not afraid to let loose, be a little bit creative with her job, and inject a whole lot of fun for everyone around.
You know the old saying "sing like no one can hear you" well she did just that and she says that is what gets her through the late night shifts that last until the wee hours of the morning. This lady says she loves her job and she loves her job because the store manager allows her to be herself. Don't you wish more of us could be ourselves? Were allowed to be ourselves?

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

Get out there

Putting yourself out there is something that is incredibly hard for people to do. This past weekend I had the opportunity to continue a project I have been doing for over a year. I have been fortunate to travel around from place to place speaking to young people to teens to adults to senior and give them the opportunity to ask any question they want an answer to.

This "asking" has taken place in many different ways from balloon launches to placing questions in a bottle to putting them in books at library's and other bookstores to just handing a bunch of question from one school to another.

This experiment certainly has always brought about many amazing questions and even better has produced a wide variety of answers. One great example of this was when a teen wrote about his/her verbal abuse that they were taking at home from their parents. Roughly 3 months later a woman responded saying that she to had gone through that experience and she gave some of the tips she had to deal with it. After I posted the question and response there were so many others that wrote back and thanked me for posting that particular exchange because they too were going through something similar.

After I spent just a couple of hours doing this with a group of teenagers this past weekend I have, more than ever, come to realize that we don't ask enough questions. For some they have wonderful outlets to ask but for others there just isn't that outlet, that freedom of being safe from judgment, that honesty and trust.

I will continue to do this project and in the meantime am always encouraging others to put themselves out there. Ask the questions you want answers to big or small, because you are not alone.


Wednesday, 14 April 2010

Awesome Ottawa supports Project Y

Well I am excited to announce that the Awesome Ottawa Foundation has found its first project to support and that project is Project Y. I love it in less than 48 hours these two organizations have not only been formed but have found a way to work together. The best part about it all they are already doing the things they say they would love to be doing and that my friends is what I have fallen in love with-DOING! Just do, explore, change, these are the words of the most current people I am working with and they are amazing. I mean where else could this much action be happening I love the fact that it is indeed happening in Ottawa-a city where sometimes change, awesome, movement, fast, and some other words are not often heard or come in any kind of speed.

I will have lots more details on both organizations (groups) as they grow and develop so keep reading and find out how you can be a part of both of these excellent, fast moving, groups of people.

Here's to COLLABORATION and MOVEMENT!