[sterling silver, dendritic opal and fossilized walrus tusk — cut and polished by me]

Thinking aloud this morning:

There are infinite ways to employ creativity. Math is creative work. Gardening is creative work. Fly fishing is creative work. Stalking an elk is creative work. Sculpting is creative work. Building a livestock enclosure is creative work. All humans are creative. Not all humans are painters, jewelers, writers, engineers, architects, homemakers…and yet, everything we set our hands to offers us a chance to employ our creativity.

I am a silversmith, a writer, a photographer, a gardener, a farmer, and an extremely proud homemaker. All of my work encourages my creativity. All work is creative work. If you are not employing your creativity in your job, don’t treat your job like it’s not the right job for you when the real issue might be that you simply are not employing your creativity to your work. It’s easy to coast. It’s easy to be complacent. It’s easy to make macaroni and cheese from a box for dinner. It’s meaningful, creative work to look in the fridge, see what tailings of food are there, and to take those random ingredients and create a delicious, well crafted, wholesome meal.

We improve the world around us — our communities, our neighborhoods, our homes, our relationships — when we strive to apply our creative power to every problem that requires solving, when we challenge ourselves to create, to fix, to build, to craft, to leave beauty and remedy in our wakes instead of trash, brokenness and chaos. To live creatively, to live artfully, is to actively apply our creative energy to everything we touch.

Don’t sit back and let someone else deal with the problem. If you have time to complain about it, you have time to fix, build, or invent a solution. Why wait for someone else to employ their creativity while your own creativity festers, rusts and rots…and is begging to be used.

Grab the bull by the horns, use your mind, use your hands, use your heart, and live creatively.