Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
Patrick Combs - Blog
Do you have something to say? - 02/25/2009
You are receiving this missive today from me. Perhaps you figure its arrived in your email box because I have something to say. That would be a wrong assumption.
You're reading what I write AFTER the creative process. You're reading the finished product and it was finished perhaps minutes ago, perhaps hours ago and perhaps even days ago (I know some of you don't open my newsletter until you're COMPLETELY bored). Nonethless, when you open this, you are reading a FINISHED product, AFTER the fact.
The "fact" is that I am writing it in real time. So what?
In real time I don't have anything to say. I didn't crack open my computer today because I had something to say. I cracked open my computer today because I WANTED to have something to say. Because I DESIRED to have something express. Because I felt I NEEDED to experience the creative-force today. But right NOW I'm excited to find out what I have to say.
See, as I was sitting around 'doing business' a oh-so-human URGE arose. The urge to have a voice. The urge to create. The urge to participate in life's rich pageant, as Inspector Clouseau and then REM first said.
Time has taught me that life becomes living when we participate at a creative level and when we use our voice, our creative to add to the mix of humanity.
And experience has taught me that if you want to participate in this rich pageant, act first. Don't sit around and wait to have something to say. Get up, grab your computer and start typing. Your muses will show up.
To be or not to be?
If you wait to have something to say, if you wait to be able to jump into your dreams, if you wait for some great idea to create, if you wait for the perfect line or perfect opening - you will be sidelines at best. You will not be.
Life has so much to love about it - especially when you've added your spark, your input, your creativity into its rich mix. Then you can love life for all it has to offer INCLUDING the part of you that you've added to it.
As I said up top - I started this with nothing to say. Only the urge to add my voice into the mix of life today, and the foolishness to do it. To just start typing. You can be so foolish too because life wants that of you. It wants your contribution, but it doesn't demand perfection or genius. It just requires willingness.
To be or not to be?
I choose to be in life, actually living. And I love it. You?
