Monotony -> Novelty

Embracing Creativity

We’ve all felt it lately. The sameness in our day to day. We can’t plan too far in the future. It is too uncertain. Bringing us to an unusually present state for the 21st century. While we sit idle distracted by our phones we have nowhere to go.

With an end to lockdown hopefully in sight, I have started to think about altering my perspective toward enthusiasm and inspiration.

One quote that has stuck with me is:

The unexamined life is not worth living.

By Socrates 

Each morning, I wake up around 5:40 a.m. and walk a few feet to my desk to start the work day. I’m off around 3pm for a work out on the beach. I then cook dinner, watch a show, listen to a book, etc. and then repeat.

Sure, there may be some additional activities in there - maybe an errand run, a game of pickle ball, or online poker with friends - but nothing truly novel. The thrill of new experiences and people has diminished. In the past, I relied on these experiences to open my mind and provide inspiration for how remarkable life truly is.

I found the more I learned about the world, the better it got.

Being in this holding pattern, I’ve fallen back into complacency and a sort of stagnation that I try to constantly avoid. While moving to LA (from NYC) and working on supporting a fundraising has been meaningfully novel, I still crave an outlet for my creativity.

There was a time in college where I used to plan events for entrepreneurship initiatives around campus. When I did this work, I felt like I was changing the world. I felt inspired and that I was doing something so important. Reflecting back, I’m not sure if it was naivete about the world, but regardless, I miss that feeling.

Over the coming weeks, I hope I can use this platform as an outlet to examine different areas of my life for optimization. Perhaps by examining, reflecting and looking back on my days, I can build a perspective of inspiration and enthusiasm for something novel going forward.

As Steve Jobs said:

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future