For nearly five years I walked the same two blocks to my train stop twice a day—morning and evening, passing the same houses, the same piles of trash, the same parked cars. Those two blocks became so dull. Every day the same thing. Nothing new to see. Sometimes, whole days could go by like that—everything the same. Nothing new to see.
Of course this is not true, but it’s very easily the mindset we can slip into, eased into the routines of the day, all too familiar with our surroundings. It’s that mundaneness that can stifle creativity. After all, what is creative thinking but exploration?
On the good days walking those same two blocks, I would look up for a change and notice the vibrant new spring leaves or cross the street to see that same stretch from another vantage point or take a different, longer route altogether. Those tiny explorations could make an otherwise mundane walk exciting.
“Exploration happens best by accident, not by following a schedule,” says John Stilgoe, professor of the history of landscape at Harvard and author of the book, Outside Lies Magic.
And exploration is important because it goes hand in hand with creativity. “How does one learn to be creative?” Stilgoe asks in his book. “How does one develop the ability to produce lots of new ideas, to respond to problems easily and energetically?”
His answer: Go outside. Look around. Walk. Notice. “Exploration encourages creativity, serendipity, invention.” Here are five ways that taking time to wander and explore the landscape around you can spark your creative mind:
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1. Feed your curiosity.
Noticing new details is a perpetuating cycle. The more we pay attention to details around us, the more we discover and want to pay attention. ”
After a weekend or so of exploring, after looking around three or four or 20 miles from home, the explorer grasps at the magic peculiar to riding with eyes and mind open,” writes Stilgoe.
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2. Learn to manage risks and find a balance.
Letting yourself step away from your work to take a walk shouldn’t be an activity reserved for only sunny beautiful afternoons. What if you went out in the rain, in the cold, in the snow? ”
Direct contact, face-to-face with warm breezes and freezing rain, sometimes vulnerable, the explorer learns to weigh risk, to balance exertion and danger and discovery and relaxation,” writes Stilgoe. Coming into contact with the most basic of resistance—a strong wind or a storm—boils what it means to face a challenge down to its most basic elements.
“The more we pay attention to details around us, the more we discover and want to pay attention.”
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3. Start to un-program your thinking.
We tend to follow a regimented schedule, even when we are taking time away from work to exercise. Yoga at six. The treadmill for half-an-hour. Kickboxing every Tuesday night. What if, on occasion, you allowed that time of exercise to be unregimented?
According to Stilgoe: “Unprogrammed exercise and a rediscovery of what schools and employers and television and computers suffocate blend into some larger whole that reorients the mind, that offers a reward greater than any posted by pure physical exercise.”
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4. Make creative exploration your M.O.
Make a habit of noticing the details around you, of going out of your way to make small new discoveries and you will notice that they begin to appear almost on their own. This doesn’t require changing the entire way you live your life.
It’s a subtle shift. “Exploration is a second nature,” writes Stilgoe, “easy enough to recover any weekday evening, any Sunday morning, any hour snatched away from programmed learning, from the webs and nets that invisibly and insidiously snare.”
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5. Scrutinize the unfamiliar.
We tend to let our eyes graze over the things we don’t know answers to when we’re out and about. But you can walk down a path to find out where it leads or pick up a scrap of paper on the ground to discover what’s written on it.
Allowing yourself to get out into nature in particular can help reawaken your curiosity. “Outdoors, away from things experts have already explained, the slightly thoughtful person willing to look around carefully for a few minutes, to scrutinize things about which he or she knows nothing in particular, begins to be aware, to notice, to explore,” writes Stilgoe. “The explorer owns all the insights, all the magic that comes from looking.”
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– Jane Porter.
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A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. – Albert Einstein.
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Life can be too organized like a classroom, home, laboratory etc.
We can find that with organization (organized environments) we lose learning from random events, spontaneous activities, nature simply doing the unexpected, animals being animals, and the various people who we come across, the rich, poor, people of various occupations that we will meet out of controlled environments, etc.
We learn in a healthy way with all this unorganized uncontrolled activity and we learn how to react to life by “living life” that is not in a controlled environment. We learn to focus and to be prepared for anything. We learn how to react to surprises, we rough it, we become good at trying new things, to take risks, to have a go etc. We find out what it takes to survive and cope with the unexpected that will happen to us later on as adults.
Too much of the same thing becomes boring of we let it. Random unexpected natural events cannot come from controlled organization. Children need natural uncontrolled environments to learn it. This builds their confidence, courage and equipts them to cope as adults.
Be sure to get away from controlled environments when you can and experience your natural environment, the world.
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What if I you fail?
What if things don’t go to plan?
The only failure you should ever accept is the act of failure itself. The past is behind you. All those mistakes that were made, all the struggles you went through, use them as further motivational tools to do better next time.
These bumps in the road should never be allowed to puncture your tires again because now, at this present moment, you know where they are and you know just the route to take to avoid them.
Face today and tomorrow with a smile. Bring passion back to your life and experience a rejuvenation that will fuel you with all the motivation you need to carry that smile on through every hurdle you cross and every goal you accomplish.
You are the only one in control of your future and with the right mindset, concrete goals, enough passion and self motivation, you can be the person you’ve always wanted to be and allow your relationships with all aspects of your life to flourish into something beautiful because of it.
– M Candy.
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Sometimes we give credit away for the things that we achieve. For instance if someone motivates you, and your life improves from your efforts to change you can give all the credit for your efforts to change, to the motivator. You can say that this person changed your life.
But that is not totally fair on you. A person may wake you up and steer you on the right path, and encourage you to venture out of your comfort zone, but it is you that chose to take that path. You chose to face the struggles and get yourself through it all to progress. So please do recognize how you have grown, progressed and your own efforts to become new.
You can lead a horse to water “but you can’t make it drink” – and a person can motivate you, but that person cannot make you change. The effort of changing is something that you own, don’t you forget it.
Be impressed by your courage to change in a world where the majority of people are happy to sit and watch their own lives float by.
And please don’t forget to thank yourself for having a go and for being brave. You are awesome, please don’t forget that.
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The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. – John Muir.
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The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles. – Anne Frank.
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