Who Cares? .. I do

This election year it seemed to me that people really cared about voting. How interesting that it has taken such a long time to get such a high percentage of people out to vote. Could it be they finally started to care?

It seems obvious to me and probably to you too that we should all care about what happens to ourselves, our families, our country, and our world but often that is not the case. It sometimes feels like a struggle to care. That could be why you may not take time for your creative work as odd as that might sound. In order to put the energy into a task we simple have to care, be inspired, be enthusiastic or at the least concerned.

I believe there is a deadly dis-ease that has been going around called “I don’t matter”. I have to tell you that I did not really discover this myself until working under the tutelage of Eric Maisel who has been my teacher and coach in this new emerging field of Creativity Coaching. On one exercise he assigned I found myself writing this, “For as productive a person as I am and can be I have struggled with the idea that no one particularly cares about what I do or create. The realization of this thought came to me in the last year or so and I have been finding it surface to my conscious awareness not so much as a knee jerk reaction anymore but as a clear thought form.”

I was amazed to read this back the other day and discover that as a result of those feelings I found it hard for me to care about what I am doing at times. So I figured that other people might be going through this same kind of thought process and it would be good to shed some light on what it is all about.

Clearly we live in society where there is not enough time to spend with our children and even when we have time we are preoccupied. Today there are zillions (a creative form of measurement) of pieces of art works, books, music, performances, and on and on. Even if you do manage to care enough to put your creative work “out there” most likely it will rarely get very much notice. So why should you care?

Once again, we have managed to put our worth in the hands of our society instead of knowing our own true worth. Years ago philosophers, poets, writers and even politicians reminded us about the importance of knowing who you are. In the 60’s it was called, “do your thing”. We all need to get back to doing our thing so we can matter in our lives. Doing your thing doesn’t mean ignoring the lives of others around you or feeling superior to someone else. It’s about allowing your spirit, your nature, your inner guidance (whatever that may be) to allow you to contribute to your life in your own way.

It’s possible by doing this you might become famous but it’s also possible you will just do it because it makes you feel good. Because you matter and so does your creativity. Only you can care about what you do in this world no one can ever make you care. In my opinion, many depressed people have lost the ability to care about themselves. They may even be able to care about another person or a cause but when it comes down to caring about themselves they are at a loss of how to connect to the world.

Sometimes the act of creating something really special or beautiful can inspire us to care. Yet we still have to make that first step of caring enough to get to the act of creating so you can see what a circle this can become if we don’t pay attention or have some kind of support in our lives.
It’s often the case that when people age and no longer work they die fairly soon. Maybe it’s because they don’t feel like they matter anymore. It would be great to find the creative urge throughout your life that helps you to reconnect with what makes you matter in life.
But more than that you have to decide to matter. You have to decide that what you do every day matters. And once you get to that place you have achieved success. Real success.

So I hope you care. I do.