I love writing, and I always have. It’s a place where I feel most at peace and certainly most creative.
Creativity, I’ve learned, is not the right of a few. All of us are born with it. The problem is, most of us don’t cultivate it. As a matter of fact, most of us are discouraged from cultivating our creativity. We’re led, almost from childhood, into safer endeavors.
And yet the creative act is one of the most challenging and most inspiring ways to live. For me, my creativity is either writing, recording audio or video, some type of content that others can consume on their own time.
Here are the five reasons why I love writing. And if you don’t love writing, then you can plug in whatever creative activity you love doing most.
- I love writing because it captures time. The time I spend writing doesn’t pass away. It’s captured in the words, the paragraphs, the message, the audio book, or the YouTube video that can live for all time in the forms in which it’s been captured.
- I love writing because it knows no distance. I have sitting on my shelf, copies of my books translated into Korean and Spanish, which means my books are all over the world. I’ve gotten emails from as far away as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, England, and Viet Nam.
- I love writing because it demands critical thinking. I know without the discipline of writing, I’d be lazy. I wouldn’t discipline my mind and force myself to think more clearly and critically.
- I love writing because it creates endless possibilities. Books go anywhere and everywhere. They are handed off to people who just may be the people who will open up new opportunities for me in the future.
- I love writing because, at its best, it allows me to offer help, a handle, and hope to those who read it, listen to it, or watch it. Think. Those are three pretty powerful things. If I can help someone without regard to location or time; if I can give someone a handle on understanding either their marriage relationship, work, or life; if I can give people hope to continue praying, pursuing, and striving, then how much better does life get than that? Not much.
Will you be a creator or a consumer, a giver or a taker, someone who just lives and passes away or someone who leaves a legacy through the content you create that others can use regardless of where they are, when they consume it, or what the conditions may be?