One of the ways a person can stay young in their thinking is to pursue creative endeavors. I love this quote by Sophia Loren about creativity as a fountain of youth.
“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”
Sophia Loren
This reminds me of a blog post I posted twelve years ago. In it, I commented on another blog post that claimed age is no excuse when it came to creativity. Twelve years later, I am even more convinced of this.
The temptation to believe we know it all and have seen it all makes us older. However, when we consider creative endeavors and begin thinking about how to do things differently, our thoughts can rejuvenate our minds.
Creativity Frees Us
When we are faced with a situation that makes us feel stuck, we get impatient and myopic. If we are convinced there is no solution to a problem, then we are prone to give up.
However, if we consider there is a solution to a problem, it frees us. When we use patience and determination to address the issue, creativity can free us from being stuck.
And if we have the audacity to believe there is more than one solution, that enables us to find the best one. Our minds have the capability to do more than we realize.
Patience and Creativity
Have you seen a situation where someone gets flustered easily? We are working on a new system and software at my work. It can be hard to learn something new when the old system has worked for many years.
I have noticed the biggest challenge to learning this, or any new system is having the patience to continue. I have heard, “The old system works fine! Why are we changing it?” But the truth is the old system is clunky and is far less automatic than it should be.
The transition is hard. But change comes whether we adjust or not. Patience and creativity go hand in hand. And when we decide to embrace these qualities, a side benefit is we can see creativity as a fountain of youth.
