| My profession - I am a dancer and a writer - involves | | | | could be fun to take a few lessons, their brain told |
| being creative every day. My family, friends, and | | | | them they would not be any good at it, or like it, |
| students always say that being creative must be | | | | because they were not born to be creative! Those |
| easy for me. They say that creativity is something | | | | were the same people I've watched pick up steps in |
| one is born with, implying that some people are born | | | | seconds, come up with new ways of leading and |
| without it. My answer to this: we are all creative in | | | | following that I did not show them, and even |
| our own way. | | | | inventing their own dance patterns! |
| My mother claims that she is the least creative | | | | Creativity comes in many forms and sizes. Most of |
| person on the face of the earth, and I used to | | | | us will never write a symphony, or produce a movie. |
| believe her for most of my childhood, when she | | | | But how many of us are capable of figuring out how |
| would yon at my dance recitals, fall asleep at the | | | | to fit our whole family schedule into 24 hours, and |
| opera, and constantly turn down the radio when I | | | | have time left over to catch up with an old friend? |
| wanted to listen to music. On the other hand, I | | | | Or anticipate what our boss is going to think of our |
| remember her picking out colorful fabrics for outfits | | | | presentation? Or find a babysitter/mechanic/plumber |
| she planned to make, arranging plates and glasses in | | | | pizza delivery at the last moment? |
| a display cabinet, and coming up with substitute | | | | If you don't feel even the least bit creative most of |
| ingredients for recipes that seemed to make the | | | | the time, join the club! I have plenty of days when I |
| food even better. | | | | have to drag my body onto the dance floor, and rely |
| Apparently, creativity is...well... creative in its | | | | on the creative reserves somewhere in the recesses |
| expressions. The fact that someone can sing, or | | | | of my brain in order to come up with a new Salsa |
| dance, or play an instrument automatically means | | | | pattern I am going to teach to a student that day. |
| that they are creative in our minds. The fact that | | | | And I have not designed my own dance costume |
| someone can figure out a new way of running an | | | | since I was 7! But before dismissing myself as a |
| age-old business is seen as a different kind of | | | | boring, conventional, non-creative type, I look at the |
| creativity. But the fact that someone is creative on a | | | | little things of my everyday life and realize that some |
| daily basis with small, everyday things, like cooking a | | | | of my dance steps are pretty amazing and different |
| meal, or finding an easier way of downloading files on | | | | from what I normally see on the dance floor, my |
| their computer, is often overlooked and dismissed. | | | | cooking is great (even though my boyfriend insists |
| Over the years, I have had quite a few students, | | | | that it is entirely too healthy!), and I figured out how |
| who confessed that they had put off taking dance | | | | to use a computer and built my business on it with |
| lessons for a long time because they are just not the | | | | no help from anyone at all. So next time you feel |
| creative type. Nobody would ever expect them to | | | | you can't do something because certain activities are |
| like dancing, so they did not think they would like it | | | | only reserved for "creative types," ignore the little |
| either. Even when they saw a dance program on TV, | | | | voice in your head that says "you can't" and do it |
| or a dance studio add in a paper, and felt that it | | | | anyway! |