Gaining The Confidence To Be A Creative
How I got the conviction that innovation is what life is all about, while accepting to go against the grain.
I have always been creative. I do not want to fit the archetypes that you are either a logical person or a creative. Person A or Person B. Nonetheless, my mother has endless accounts of when I had told melodramatic stories since I could talk. I would stay up in the middle of the night and pretend I was a teacher along with my siblings, who were the students, making up non-sensical scenarios in the classroom to entertain them as we drifted off to sleep.
But as I grew older my love for books and the arts declined as I realised what type of world we lived in. I had discovered that if one wants to be a ‘writer’, you had to have your book in the ‘New York Times Best Sellers List’ in order to be seen as a ‘success’. If not, you would be broke, seen as lazy, and ultimately, a loser. I felt as if your book was not in a bookstore. You were a loser. Success and nothing less.
It did not help that I come from a family of lawyers. My father. My grandfather. My great-grandfather. It was as if from a young age, my siblings and I were destined to be in the courtroom. As a child, I had spent hours in my father's office staring at the hundred-year-old law books with their red covering in pristine condition which nobody read. I would tag along to meetings, networking lunches, and my father would report to me all the happenings from his international travels. However, as much as it surrounded me, I never felt a connection to the world of law and justice. I desperately wanted to feel something, to make my family proud, to go down the path that seemed clear and made complete sense. A life that was, all in all, a blessed one to have.
My creativity sparked at the age of eleven. When my teacher entered the class into a 100-word short story competition centered around the idea of Grim Tales. I titled my piece, “Why so White, Snow White?”. I loved it. I spent the evening writing. Thinking of ideas. Making it unique. Editing. It brought me joy. I handed in my short story the next day. I won. I had gotten into the anthology. It was an incredible feeling. I had my little eleven-year-old voice heard. But, after all that excitement and jubilation, I stopped. I was proud of myself but silently, ashamed I did not want to enjoy it. Subconsciously, I had hoped that it had been a fluke. To my disappointment, it was not, I found myself generating new ideas, looking forward to English lessons, and entering more competitions.
Although, I celebrated silently. I think it was due to the embarrassment that centered around the idea of ‘writing’. Every time I had heard of a writer, the words that popped into my head were: Broke. Lazy. Failure.
As time passed and the clock drew closer to university. The conversation swerved back to the career of law. My extended family knew about my writing but persisted that ‘law was the way to go.’’ You know, they make a lot of money now.’’ ‘Law is easy, you can do your writing on the side.’’ To be honest, nothing they said was wrong. Still embarrassed of my love for the arts, I took their advice on board. I had pictured myself in an office with red law books in pristine condition office, going for networking brunches, traveling the world for conferences. I knew in my heart that law was not for me, that I would be miserable, but people do say “It is better to cry in a Bentley than to cry in a Honda.” I was too scared to be seen as a writer, to be seen as a failure.
I was ready to follow my miserable fate. It has only been during this quarantine that I decided to look into myself and be alone. Away from all the family members and friends to discover that writing is the only thing that I look forward to doing. Being creative is what I have to do. I am miserable, moody, and not the best person to be around when I am not innovating. It was only on a summer evening, my mother brought up a conversation concerning my future and saw how distressed I had been discussing university. She rounded her lecture off with the notion, nobody cares.
Nobody Cares
It had never fully dawned on me, how much I have been a people-pleasing, seeking people’s validation before my own. I was ready to kiss away my joy for the approval of my family. I am lucky enough to live in the western world, to have the option to do what I want. I should not care if I am going against the grain. Creating us what I am meant to be doing. It is inconsequential how everyone else felt about what I would do with my life.
My ask of you is to live largely. Think about what brings you joy. Take each day step by step. As creatives, we do not have to follow the path that the world approves of. Make your own version of success. Do it for the child that used to spend hours reading, the child who told stories until they fell asleep.
