Many people struggle to discover what they want to do with their lives: what direction they are going to end up going, and to which job they will end up slaving away every single day. Work happens to be a huge aspect of our lives; it puts food on our tables and keeps us competitive.
You hear it all the time, from every angle: either people are unhappy with the direction their lives are taking, declaring that they need change, because they are miserable being stuck in their little cubicles everyday; or they have no idea what they are going to do in their life, because they have little to no experience in flourishing the creativity that they hold.
The answer to both of these common worries is in our inherent creativity. We are all artists; life is an empty canvas that we paint with our decisions, choices and legacy. Once it is all said and done and our time is over, our canvas reflects the actuality, depth and color of our lives.
But that is not simply the only way we are artists in life. Every single person is an artist, no matter what they do. Whether they are in business, finance or even painting. We all have an art to doing things, and in this world, it is our creativity and innovation that lead us forward. Steve Jobs once said: "If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away."
Would you consider Steve Jobs an artist? Of course you would, the man had an art that innovated the world: simplifying technology and providing the blueprint to the current largest company in the world. If you look at the definition of art, its backbone is creativity and thinking outside the box, rather than just splashing paint on a canvas.
“Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions."
Essentially, that definition makes us all artists. In today’s world, we have been stripped of our creativity through our rigorous school system, which made us study things that we actually hate. Think about how excited and interested you are when you work on something that you enjoy and your creativity allows you to decide what direction you take.
From playing video games, to playing sports, to whatever hobby it is that we love, the reason why we love it so much is because we are allowed to control what happens with our creativity – and, that, essentially makes it an art.
Now we must return to the real world, what we actually do everyday, and not just our simple hobbies. Because we have been stripped of our creativity, we have become robots -- and that is why everyone has become so confused and miserable with their lives. Because they don't know what they love to do, and whatever it is that they love to do requires a sense of creativity and their own art to it.
If you want to be miserable your whole life, work somewhere you hate and constantly complain, then you are by no means an artist -- you have no creativity, no room for your mind to flourish and no excitement to wake up the next day and keep going. What makes you an artist is how much passion you have for what you do. When you are passionate about it, you will be creative and constantly innovate both your product and your self.
To truly find happiness in life, and within what you are working on everyday, you need to figure out what brings out the true artist in you. Everything has an art to it, whether it be creating a new way to listen to music, or the way you trade stock, to the way you manage your company. All of this is affected by how much you love what you do and that inspires those around you to work harder because they believe in your artwork and want to be part of it.
Creativity is everything in life. It is what makes me want to run out of bed every morning and drive on the sidewalk so I can get to work faster. It is what makes me think, allows me to explore and challenges me, which is why I love it so much.
That creativity is something deep inside all of you as well. It is something that you have to bring out of yourself because it has been buried by our society in its attempt to shape us into the perfect bitches, for lack of a better turn of phrase.
When you bring out the true artist in yourself and start applying it to your life -- that is when you flourish, that is when you find your true peace and begin to do what you love. The best part about it, is that is could be anything and anywhere…but the hardest part about it, is that is quite hard to find. That is when you show the world what you are capable of and what you are bringing to the table.
When you battle that inner artist because you don't trust it or are afraid, that is when you end up almost non-living or nonexistent. Humanity survives on having the ability to create, explore and constantly challenge ourselves.
When an artist has a blank canvas in front of him, the process to contentment with the finished product is one of the hardest things to manage, but the journey to get from blankness to actual art is true beauty and what we as humans can aspire to. You need to apply that thinking to life. When you start on what you love to do, that is when your canvas is blank -- it is up to you to fill in the lines, dots and colors. Your mind has a lot more to offer the world than you think.
Preston Waters | Elite.
