Creativity and Balance

Being creative isn’t difficult… we all have the capacity to think of things, new ideas, and to create things that didn’t exist.

It might seem easier for others but that’s because we oftentimes focus on the more tangible things rather than the intangible ones that are just as important (or more important) than the things that we can touch and feel and taste and see and hear.

For instance, there’s a dear friend of mine who holds a moderately decent job at a large tech company that makes moderately interesting software… he doesn’t love it but that doesn’t bother him much.

Why? Because he creates, he build relationships. He’s amazing at it. He builds wide and deep with people of all shapes and sizes. You can’t see his work, you can’t taste it, but you hear about it all the time.

His challenge isn’t putting together the intricate parts of a software project, timelines, resources, and tooling… it’s making sure that his ever-expanding network of people feels respected, loved, and appreciated. That’s his passion and his really damn good at it.

Balance, for him, is making sure that he doesn’t over-extend his relational creativity too much per day, per week, per month, and per year. How? I’m not entirely sure, but I can sense him struggle when we chat about it over coffee.

And if I’m honest, there are times where I’m frankly jealous — I wish I was that good at building relationships as he is. Such finesse, such poise, such class. It’s neither self-promotional or underhanded. It’s just honest work.