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Being creative is a given. Life gives us no choice in this. Our minds create our lives whether we want them to or not. (Even surrendering that right to others is a creative choice.)
The choice is in what to create. Will we create a life of apathy? A life of blaming the government, the ex, or the parents? Or will we create a life of our choosing regardless—no matter how challenging it may seem?
Same thing with freedom. Freedom is a given no matter the story the elders may tell us from a young, impressionable age. Freedom is our nature.
The choice is in what to use that freedom for. We’re free to tell ourselves any story we want to tell ourselves. Will it be one of bondage? One of helplessness? Or one of a different nature? We’re free to choose.
Life wants one thing…more life.
“It is the natural and inherent impulse of life to seek to live more; it is the nature of intelligence to enlarge itself, and of consciousness to seek to extend its boundaries and find fuller expression.” –Wallace Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich
We can fight it, ignore it, or use it to our advantage.
You have no choice. You’re a free, creative being. What now?
Freedom can be terrifying. Especially when you know you’re making all this up. When you realize it’s on you. No one to blame. No safety blanket or fall guy.
On the other hand, it can be invigorating. At any moment, you choose whatever thought you want to think—consciously or unconsciously. Do you realize the implications of this? This is huge.
I did a little exercise yesterday where I’d periodically stop myself and say—Jonas, you can think whatever you want to think right now. What’ll it be? What serves you the most? It was incredibly empowering.
We have full creative license over our thoughts. At all times.
Wow.
The advertisers and marketers will tell us that we need the stuff to think certain thoughts or feel certain ways.
Want to feel exhilaration? You gotta have the Jaguar from the commercial that makes hairpin turns on a mountainside road with no one else on it.
Want to be unique? You gotta drink Dos Equis like the world’s most interesting man.
Want financial freedom? Tony Robbins is the only guy who has the blueprint for that—buy his stuff.
…but it’s just not true.
Our thoughts cannot be bought and sold.
Side note: Don’t get me wrong… There’s nothing wrong with ‘stuff’. I love stuff. I want a nice car, house(s), and a stuffed bank account, and I have no shame in saying it. I love spending money. We just have to be sure to not assign the ‘stuff’ the master role. We are the masters of the stuff. We get to enjoy it, but we don’t depend on it for our enjoyment.
It’s a huge bummer that we give this power away. We get caught in a traffic jam, our 2-year old smears poop all over the bathroom, or we get another overdraft fee and we forget that we can do this.
You’re steering this ship. Which way are you taking it?
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This post was originally published on medium.com, and is republished here with the author’s permission.
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Photo credit: Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash