Spend Your Time Creating, Rather Than Consuming
How to upgrade from ordinary to extraordinary
“Entertainment is all well and good. But only when that entertainment is an investment in your relationships or yourself. You’ll know if it was an investment if that entertainment continues to yield returns over and over in your future. That may include positive memories, transformational learning, or deepened relationships.” -Benjamin P. Hardy
If you’ve ever wondered why you don’t see ads for Tesla’s or Ferrari’s on your television set, I can give you the answer the right now:
It’s because anyone who’s got the money to buy a Tesla or Ferrari isn’t watching TV.
The people with that sort of money aren’t spending it (or their time) on consuming things made by other people, rather, they’re spending it getting where they want to be in life.
See, when spend your time in the present consuming anything that doesn’t enable and empower you to reach your future goals and ambitions, life will just start happening to you.
Rather than shaping and creating the future as you desire, things will become increasingly complex, confusing, and hectic. It will feel like you’re a victim of your destiny, rather than the master and creator of it.
The World Wants You to Be A consumer
“You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.”-John Maxwell
The industrialists and the systems we live with want you to be a consumer. They want you fit in, they want you to settle for less, they want you to watch in amazement as other people do what you could do.
Why? Because people with dreams and ambitions of their own are hard to control. They don’t play by the rules, they think for themselves, and worst of all, they have the potential to ruin the entire system.
When you switch from having a consumers, to a creators mindset, you’ll begin to see the world around you differently, you’ll be focused on giving your gifts, rather than consuming all the entertainment and distraction you can get your hands on. Which truthfully, is bad for business.
There’s a fortune to be made from your eyeballs, and everyone wants a piece.
However, you, of course, have the choice of where your eyeballs go, and can at anytime switch from a consumers, to creators mentality. To do so, you’ll starve a lot of people from benefiting from your consumption.
All this may sound like a crazy conspiracy, but I can ensure you it’s not, and the sooner you take yourself out of this consumer equation; the better.
We’re All Artists, Stop Hiding Your Gifts from the World
“Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.” -Seth Godin
Any belief you have that says you’re not an artist is either self-imposed or has been inflicted upon you by the schooling and industrialist systems.
Humans are born to be creative. You are given all the tools to be an artist in kindergarten. You are encouraged to paint, build sandcastles, and everything in between.
However, once you reach about 10, they take away those tools and replace them with uninspiring books on mathematics, physics, and history, so that you’ll grow up to be, not a creator, but a consumer and an obedient member of society.
Hence why Julian F. Fleron has famously said,
“The creative adult is the child who survived after the world tried killing them, making them grown up.”
While I partly agree with that statement, I believe the creative child is never dead. It’s still very alive in all of us, and it’s now each individuals job to reignite that flame in order to bring their gifts to the world.
If you don’t, you’re being selfish and stingy by hiding your gifts from those who could benefit from them.
In Conclusion
Ordinary people spend their time consuming all the entertainment and distractions they can get their hands on.
While extraordinary people consume only those things that are going to help you get where you want to be in life and spend the majority of their time creating.
Your eyeballs can make a lot of money, it’ll either be for you or if you're like most people, it’ll be for someone else.
We’re all artists. What gifts are you hiding from the world?
