I got a courtesy call from my car dealer the other day. “Hi, just checking on your AC repair. Is everything working ok?” Oh. How nice. They wanted to make sure everything’s good. I answered affirmatively. “Excellent. Well you’ll receive a survey in your email in a couple days from the manufacturer. Can you make sure and answer ‘completely satisfied’. We really need the grade.” Ugghhhhh.
Don’t you hate it when that happens? People pretend to care only to manipulate you into helping them? I’m sure you have “friends” like that.
I get emails like that all the time. “Hey Jonathan! I love your new blog post. Hope you’re doing well. (next line) I was hoping you’d be willing to promote a new project I’m working on.” It’d almost be better if they just asked their question instead of pretending to be interested in my life first.
Now I hate it when people do that to me. But how often do I do that to my creative brain? I neglect it for so long then approach it only when I need something. I send my creative side an email out of the blue and expect it to help me. That’s not how it works. That’s not how relationships with creativity work.
You need to invest in your creative self. You need to pour inspiration into the relationship. You need to make times for the relationship even when you don’t need anything.
That’s the key to a healthy relationship with your inner creative. That’s the key to any relationship really.
So the point of this: Don’t be that guy or girl…the one who takes and takes whenever they need something. Instead, give. Invest.
I love this concept. I often google images of various types of art, crafts, stage sets, classroom projects etc, just because, I look at a piece of metal and wonder if it could become a part of some folk art for the garden, or be turned into a prop for VBS, or the stage, even when I know that that particular piece of metal is unavailable to me. God gave us all a talent and calls us to invest in it and make it grow. You have to make regular deposits if you want to keep making withdrawals. Otherwise, you’ll go broke.
I love this concept. I often google images of various types of art, crafts, stage sets, classroom projects etc, just because, I look at a piece of metal and wonder if it could become a part of some folk art for the garden, or be turned into a prop for VBS, or the stage, even when I know that that particular piece of metal is unavailable to me. God gave us all a talent and calls us to invest in it and make it grow. You have to make regular deposits if you want to keep making withdrawals. Otherwise, you’ll go broke.