Creativity Can Be Messy

Last weekend the girls were sitting at the kitchen table playing with Play-do. I left them alone for a bit and when I returned there was quite a mess on the floor so I asked, "how did all this Play-do get on the floor," and without missing a beat Amelia responded, "because we were working so hard." Yeah, that sounds about right.

The funny thing about it is, the initial reaction in me when I saw the mess was to demand it be cleaned up. But Amelia's answer stopped me in my tracks; caused me to rethink. I usually make a decent mess when I'm into a project. I told Lisa about it and she responded that she makes a pretty big mess when she's most creative, especially when it comes to cooking. So why did I default to some pathetic, middle-manager mentality? What I came up with is that I was only thinking about how the mess affected me at that moment and not the big picture. I was thinking, "man, I'm going to have to clean this up," instead of focusing on the finished Play-do product which was really impressive.

The actual mess only took less than a minute to remedy but the real bullet I dodged was nearly placing limitations on the creative process. Professionally, I tend not to interfere with people in their creative modes and give them all the freedom they need to get into the zone. There is absolutely no good reason to change those values at home. I really think that in order to create your best work, you have to be fearless and free. I don't want my children to hold back because they are fearful of getting in trouble for making a mess. There is obviously a balance here but I know in this case I was the one that could've knocked it out of whack.

In a world where each generation faces new and complicated challenges, we need to raise as many creative thinkers as we can. Please don't make the mistake I nearly did. So after hearing, "because we were working so hard," and in that moment rethinking my position I said, "Good answer."