Now creating, actualizing one’s possibilities, always involves negative as well as positive aspects. It always involves destroying the status quo, destroying old patterns within oneself, progressively destroying what one has clung to from childhood on, and creating new and original forms and ways of living. If one does not do this, one is refusing to grow, refusing to avail himself of his possibilities; one is shirking his responsibility to himself. – Rollo May

A thought for today: the real journey begins when we have no roadmap. When we allow ourselves to be guided by our own souls without knowing where the path may lead. I am reminded of the phrase, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). And, indeed, faith is required. So, too, are courage, creativity, and a willingness to be open to the possibilities of the here-and-now.

To be sure, we expend a great deal of energy on creating roadmaps for our lives based on safety, stability, and predictability, often at the expense of our own aliveness. When our lives are too safe, too stable, too predictable, and too resistant to change, it is as if we are strangling our own life force. We’re not permitting ourselves to evolve, to be spontaneous, or to meet the world with soulfulness and authenticity.

It can be uncomfortable to think about the fact that we are, indeed, floating through space without knowing how fast we fall. And, in the end, there’s no amount of predictability that can save us. There is, however, something freeing about the realization that all I really have is right here, right now. It is this realization, this willingness to live each day as it is without grasping too tightly to yesterday or tomorrow, that is the foundation of creative living. 

Creative living is often talked about in terms of finding a balance between art and life. (And believe me, I know what a struggle that can be!) But I don’t think of creative living in terms of a craft. To me, it is an ethos. It is the spirit with which we choose to meet the world and a means of engaging with our environment, no matter what we’re doing. At the heart of creative living, for me, is a single question:

On this day, what have I been given, and what will I do with what I have been given?

I ask myself this question every morning. This is how I orient myself to the day. I take stock of everything from work, chores, errands, and other responsibilities to the weather and what I am going to make for dinner that evening. If I feel like spending time with my collage practice, I try to carve out time to do so. If the sun is shining, I ask myself how I can make the most of the sunshine—perhaps by spending time photographing my backyard birds or simply going for a walk. This time of year, I often embrace the colder temperatures by making comfort food for dinner. I also spend a lot more time feeding and photographing the birds, as my feeders are extremely busy in the wintertime. (To embrace the holiday season, I picked up a Christmas-themed treat for the birds yesterday. I even topped it with a bow.) It is worth mentioning, too, that feeding birds constitutes the “little bit of good” I put out into the world each day. A piece of unsolicited advice: have something you do everyday that is your “little bit of good,” even if it’s something as small as offering birdseed. You might be surprised how much it opens your heart.

This is how I live creatively: by taking the “materials” of the present moment and making the most of them, or making them mine. I often think of my environment as an extension of me. I try to treat it like it has soul. To live this way opens the door to growth, spontaneity, and a spirit of playfulness. It also allows our life force to flow more freely. When we’re not stymieing ourselves by forcing, or controlling, or clinging to our patterns and routines, we are free to accept and appreciate what is and to respond to it in a manner that is open, joyful, and loving. 

Creative living is celebratory living. To accept each day as it comes, no matter what’s happening in our lives, to find within it the buried treasure—and to make the very most of that treasure—that, to my mind, is what living creatively is all about. 

I’ll leave you with one final reflection: to live creatively is to create ourselves. When we remain open to life’s possibilities, we are also opening ourselves to our own sense of possibility. As the above quote from Rollo May suggests, we have a responsibility to evolve, to break old, outworn patterns, to discover our talents, our passions, our potentialities, and to use them to make a life. As someone who is always creating, it is my experience that nothing compares to creating oneself. There’s not a poem, not a collage, not a single photograph I’ve taken or meal I’ve made that has been as challenging or as rewarding as the process of creating myself.