Create ⁂ #hopewriterlife

When was the last time you took the time to create something beautiful? Paint, clay, wood, yarn, music, craft herpes (glitter… come on, now), something. If you’re like most of the rest of us, you haven’t actually taken the time to create something since the day before you started worrying about what other people think and judging your creation by some arbitrary set of standards for what makes a thing “good art” or beautiful.

But if you’re like most of the rest of us, you’re also the person who would immediately tell a small human how beautiful their art is and how impressed you are with the effort they put into their work.

So which do you actually believe?

Why is a creation made by a child for the joy of it beautiful and worthwhile but a creation made by you not?

Let me tell you what I know as a master teacher who has worked with children for more than 20 years: if you tell a child something that you do not actually believe, something that you do not actually do, something that your actions or your inner self doesn’t actually believe in, then they know you are lying and they will learn to believe, expect, and do exactly as you are doing.

So take the time to create something and to practice what you preach. Do it for the children in your life. Do it for yourself. It doesn’t have to be arbitrarily beautiful. It doesn’t have to tick the boxes off on a rubric for expectations. It just has to be enjoyable to create and something to that lets your creative juices flow.