When the global pandemic was first announced, it was a bewildering feeling. It was scary, and yet, somehow thrilling—a novel experience, to say the least.

So throughout the rest of the year—and setting aside traumas and deaths—we got to enjoy the slower pace of remote living. But now, almost a year later, the mental, emotional, and physical toll has surfaced. We’ve absorbed the knocks, and now, we’re just plain and simply, tired.

When the new year kicked in, I thought that taking a break from my creative writing to “live a little more” would energize me—it didn’t. I felt lethargic instead. I felt a void inside myself that was snowballing by the day.

If you find yourself growing more weary and anxious about the future, scientific research indicates that regardless of your artistic experience or talent, just a 45-minute session of focused creative activity significantly lowers the cortisol levels in your body, and thus, reduces your overall stress.

In other words, a small dose of daily creativity is good for us. It can help us become more present, less anxious, and much more fulfilled. And as I continue to learn more about the mental health benefits of creativity, I realize now how the simple habit of writing every day has boosted my self-esteem, given me a sense of purpose, and formed a buffer for emotional release.

The Problem with Too Much Consumption

In this 21st century, there’s so much you could do to fill all the hours in your day. You can binge-watch anything on demand. You can order a bunch of stuff and have them arrive at your doorstep on the same day. You can spend countless hours scrolling on your phone, at the mercy of an algorithm, and you’d only scratch less than 1% of the social entertainment that’s at your disposal.

Extrapolate that across the next week, month, and years, and you begin to see why some people can fall into the trap of endless consumption and inactivity.

Look, life is meant to be lived and enjoyed, but that’s not the ultimate purpose of life. What’s the purpose? Your purpose is just to be alive and do what good you can with it. Your purpose is to keep growing and evolving. It’s as simple as that.

I think Ralph Waldo Emerson captured it well:

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

As you make yourself useful by enjoying the process of adding more arsenal to your realm of knowledge and skills, so that you can put them to good use and contribute threads to the fabric of society, happiness simply becomes a byproduct of that journey. Happiness becomes the way.

The problem with too much consumption, however, is that it can leave us feeling utterly empty inside. Ironically, it creates something: One big void.

You start to feel stuck, not knowing what to do with your life. You lose agency over your habits, you lose control over your emotions, and eventually, this loss in energy translates into zero productivity.

Too much consumption leads to a life of escapism. Instead of learning how to sit with your emotions or exploring what’s inside of you and self-expressing yourself through art, you seek an escape that would make you forget.

Another problem with consumption is that it can give you a false illusion that you’re doing something. Spending hours watching fitness videos will not help you become fit. You’ve got to get up and move to do so. Spending hours watching cooking shows won’t make you a better cook—cooking will.

With that in mind, you’ve got to make a decision: Do you want to define your life by self-expressive creation or mindless consumption? By selflessly giving or selfishly taking? As Martin Luther King Jr. once said: “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

Creativity is Your Duty, But it Can Also Be a Therapeutic Tool

Art is the most beautiful form of human expression. Whether it be through prose, science, technology, innovation, visual arts, or illustration, the sheer act of living in a state of wonder and creation is what makes us human.

When we create, we enter a state of flow, and flow is what psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihály defines as a state of complete immersion in an activity for its own sake. In his book, Flow: The psychology of optimal experience, he writes:

“Flow is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

There’s a distinct word here that I should highlight. Notice how he says enjoyable and not pleasurable because they’re two different things.

Activities like eating, drinking, sleeping, and watching entertainment, are examples of pleasurable experiences. They’re passive and transient in nature. Enjoyable experiences, on the other hand, are active. Think of sports, writing, and art—they demand you to show up to it and be fully immersed in it.

In other words: Pleasurable experiences are rooted in consumption. Enjoyable experiences are rooted in creation.

And this relates to what Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali poet, philosopher, and the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize, wrote somewhere between the 19th and 20th century:

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. 
I awoke and saw that life was duty. 
I worked—and behold, duty was joy.”

Work is duty and “duty is joy.”

That’s one great mantra to live by. Duty is not pleasure; duty is joy. Duty is not consumption; duty is creation. And since creativity is a form of work and work is a duty, then creativity is a duty—a joy.

When I sit down on my chair to write, I face a lot of resistance, but I insist on carrying myself through because the simple practice of plucking thoughts from the garden of my mind and glazing them in words gives me a sense of peace and calm. It arms me with joy. Hours flash by in minutes. The focus drifts me away from my worries of the future and returns me to the present.

And after I walk away from my desk, the knowledge that I just painted an entire white page with black ink—that I’ve done something good today—graces me with the freedom to feel fulfilled.

Writing is my art of choice, and it helps me make sense of my life, but as this published study on the connection between art and healing demonstrates, any form of art can help you improve your mental and emotional wellbeing.

When you focus on one activity and become fully absorbed by it, your heart rate slows and your breath deepens. This immersive nature of being creative helps you control what thoughts you pay attention to. In a way, creative work transforms into a form of meditation.

But what makes it all worthwhile? The sense of accomplishment you feel by the end of it. Even if no one else checks out your work, it’ll still help you see yourself in a new light and earn your own appreciation. The artistic process of self-express helps you understand yourself better. And if you ask me, that’s the single most potent benefit of having your own creative outlet.

In fact, that’s why in the field of psychotherapy, they utilize the creative process to help people explore self-expression and, in doing so, find new ways to gain personal insight and develop more robust coping skills. It’s called art therapy.

How to Tip The Scale Toward Creation

In her book, Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert writes that “a creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner—continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you—is a fine art, in and of itself.” I love that, and I couldn’t agree more.

Truth is, it doesn't take much to live a creative life. You don’t need to quit your job. You don’t need to move to a new place to feel inspired. You don’t need to sign-up for a $1,000 course to learn how to to make art.

You just need to start.

And you just need to tip the scale toward creation.

Here’s a simple 3-step strategy to help you get started:

1. Choose something you enjoy. Not something that gives you pleasure—something you enjoy. Something that pulls you in. Whether it be writing, drawing, designing, knitting, or baking, you’re only able to enter a state of flow when you do something for its own sake rather than an extrinsic reward. When the work is the reward—that’s what it means to enjoy it.

2. Block time for it, show up to it and say “no” to protect it. Set aside an hour a day for creativity. Switch off your phone. Create an interruption-free space. Say no to whatever or whoever pulls you in another direction. And if you can’t commit to a daily practice, can you do it twice per week?

3. Leave your judgment at the door and replace it with self-compassion. Seriously. Remember that growth is a process. Good things take time to bloom. What keeps you growing, however, is your ability to suspend your critical judgment, honor your creative work, and be compassionate with yourself. You’re more capable than you think.

A New Mantra to Live By

Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson once these words:

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."

In other words, don’t judge each day by what you consume but by what you create. Create more, consume less. That’s a good mantra to live by.

I won't judge each day by what I consume, but by what I create.

I think you should too.