Create then consume
I wish I started doing this sooner
Remember the undisputed best day of your life when you got your first flip phone?
You no longer had to worry if you’re parents or siblings were listening in on your all-too-important calls from the other side of the house. It was like a right of passage. You finally got your first taste of freedom.
Or so you thought…..
That newfound freedom quickly became a prison of your own making.
Your phone was the first thing you grabbed each day after rubbing the crusties out of your eyes. You needed to catch up on all those juicy text conversations you’d had the previous night. And of course, you had to check if your crush texted you back (they never did).
Those were simpler times so this usually wouldn’t take more than a few minutes.
Then phones became “smart”.
This new device gave you access to the internet, email, news, social media, and dating apps. What used to be a five minute check up expanded to thirty, sixty, even ninety minutes of straight consumption. That’s still the case for many of us.
Then we wondered why we felt a tinge of anxiety and depression creep in before our feet made first contact with the floor…..
This is how I started every single day of my life for 17 years.
Is it still how you start yours? Don’t lie.
I felt like a lab rat scurrying through an endless maze.
So I experimented with a slight alteration that led to a radical transformation — create THEN consume. Instead of doom scrolling for an hour (or more) each morning, I used that time to create something, anything. My creative activity of choice is writing but yours could be whatever you like.
Your mind is a blank slate when you first wake up so I find that’s the best time to create.
Why not create before you give in to the onslaught of notifications begging you to consume?
It frees you up to explore that part of you that’s been lying dormant for years. It’s not always pretty, but it is always worth it.
You have to earn the right to consume by first committing to create.
As long as you exercise your creative muscles before letting your consumption muscles steal the show, it’s hard to have a bad day.
I like to set aside an hour for creative time, but even if you only have ten minutes, that’s better than nothing.
How much of your day is spent in consumption mode? Three hours? Six hours? Nine hours? Oh my!
What if you stole one of those hours and made it mandatory creative time instead?
Imagine the possibilities.
So please go grab a pen, paintbrush, hammer, or whatever and commit to create before you consume.
This doesn’t guarantee you’ll create a masterpiece.
Oh no. But that’s not the point.
Just commit to creating something for a set amount of time even if it never sees the light of day. And give yourself permission to immediately trash your creation after you’re finished. Lord knows I’ve done this dozens of times.
Eventually you’ll run out of creative junk and you might just surprise yourself with some nonjunk.
It’s not your God given right to consume, consume, and consume some more.
You’ve got a duty even if you (falsely) believe you can’t create anything worth consuming.
After several creative gym sessions you’ll see some biceps appear in the mirror. And you might even feel the need to flex by sharing one of your creations with others.
All thanks to one simple realization — you were born to create not just consume.
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Create, THEN consume. A gospel to live by.
Hey nice essay!