By Dennis Mellersh

If we are not careful, we can spend a lot of time studying creativity and creative thinking, but, for one reason or another we never, or rarely, practise what we are learning and take steps to actually be creative, to implement creativity, to use the creative process in projects and pursuits that are important to us.

This tendency has been put in a poetic way by Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1874 to 1880:

“Most people die with their music still locked up inside them.”

And by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.(1), American physician and respected writer/poet (1808-1894)* who also offers a brief explanation of why he thought this happens:

“Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it time runs out.”

We can avoid this outcome if we discipline ourselves take at just 15 to 30 minutes a day and devote them to actually taking some form of action in a creative pursuit that interests us.

We’re probable already spending at least that amount of time in watching, reading, or listening to creative process and creativity media.

(1) “Surrounded by Boston’s literary elite—which included friends such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell—Holmes made an indelible imprint on the literary world of the 19th century. Many of his works were published in The Atlantic Monthly, a magazine that he named. For his literary achievements and other accomplishments, he was awarded numerous honorary degrees from universities around the world.” – Wikipedia