I feel a bit odd writing this, especially considering that other people in Jamie Ridler’s online bookclub, The Next Chapter on The Joy Diet: Ten Daily Practices for a Happier Life, really disliked the chapter, but I actually found the creativity chapter very familiar.
You see, for several reasons, I am for the most part very adaptive, reality-based and persistent – the combination means that the following menu items were all familiar to me in one way or another:
Force innovation – I know necessity is the mother of all invention, but for me perseverance and motivation are have made me come up with solutions to obstacles in life. When I really want to achieve a goal, I hit a “I will not take no for an answer” zone and when I am in that zone, I will force whatever innovation is necessary. The key is wanting something badly enough to get into that zone.
Perseverate on your enemies – This one I could not relate to in that it was an inherently negative concept, but it is true that we can always learn something from people we dislike. Sometimes the character traits we dislike in a person are actually those we dislike in ourselves – but on the other side of the spectrum, we might dislike a person’s character traits because we wish we had some amount of them ourselves.
Unify false dichotomies – I started practicing yoga almost daily in the year before I started law school. Even my first year of law school I practiced four times a week. By the time my summer job rolled around, I was excited about being in New York and trying different yoga studios in my free time. I remember how a friend of mine told me that I should not talk about any of that at my job, because there was no way anyone would believe someone could be a serious law student and as into yoga as I was at that time. I remember looking at her and thinking that she had totally set up a false dichotomy.
Break the rules of the Garden of Eden – One of the things that always struck me as a child was that I would say outloud things about dynamics between family members, and immediately get shushed.
Combine the incongruous – Time permitting, this is a great strategy for me when I have to solve something and need space from it. Needing to do one thing but doing another can really
Do one thing different – That really fits in with the above “combine the incongruous” – at least for me.
General Disclosures & Disclaimers
