Much of our waking time can be divided into two categories of activity: consumption and creation.
Consumption includes most of the time we spend on social media, watching sport, listening to music or shopping. Consumption is passive entertainment and it’s easy.
Creation, on the other hand, covers anything that brings something new into the world – from building a garden office to creating a video. Creation involves thinking and endeavour; and with it comes struggle and frustration and failure.
When offered a choice between consumption and creation, the path of least resistance means that consumption usually wins, some examples:
Consumption
3 glasses of wine every evening? Definitely
A pizza for dinner? Easy
Watching the entire Ted Lasso series over the weekend? Consider it done
Creation
Developing that app to improve the life of millions? I’ll start next month; on second thoughts, make that next year…
Landscaping the garden? Too busy
Speaking a new language? I don’t have time
Consumption, like most things that are easy and enjoyable in the moment, does not change our life. Watching our team win the Champions League feels great on the night it happens, but the next day nothing in our life changes.
Creating involves action and making mistakes and taking risks. But when we create, we bring new things to life, including:
- the thing we are creating
- a new version of ourselves that grows from our experience of creating
- the satisfaction of having used our unique gifts and life experience to create something new. This reward may be far more long-living and meaningful than the fleeting enjoyment we experienced by seeing our team win or from drinking a glass of whisky
- the possibility that our work will have positively changed, in some small way, the life of at least one more person