Health is Creativity
April 18th 2007 04:38
The best definition of health that I am able to come up with is: doing well where you are. One of the challenges implied in this definition is that where we are changes.
While most of our lives are relatively stable most of the time it is also true that at any time it is likely for something to be changing. It may be something major (like a cancer scare, a discovery or loss of faith, a divorce or falling in love) or something minor (a new train timetable or a small additional task at work).
And so we are called on to be adaptable. This means that in some way our lives are changing almost all the time. And this can be very tiring. Especially if we don’t feel that we don’t have the time to sit back and assess what is going on.
There is much wisdom in the idea of having a day off every week. And an annual holiday too. In our societies where money increasingly reigns this is becoming more and more difficult. We are often in a situation of chronic low grade stress where we don’t ever get a clear break. So times of meditation and relaxation are a great idea. If you find your mind wonders when you meditate (as mine does) you might like to try something with movement like yoga or qi gong. Enjoying comedies shouldn’t be neglected either. Laughter is delightful and uplifting and good for us. (Norman Cousins believes he cured himself of a life threatening disease by watching funny movies.) All these are ways of getting more space into our lives.
Sometimes a more active response is called for and we need to modify our situation. Something creative is needed. The best exercise I know for developing our creativity is to get a piece of paper with squares on it. You could buy some graph paper and divide it up or use a ruler. The challenge is to think of as many ways as possible to divide a square into four equal parts. It has to be a new idea each time, not just a slight twist on the same idea. This is surprisingly demanding.
Another option would be to pursue some of the ideas of Edward de Bono for deliberate design. These are too numerous to mention. He has authored many books, most of which are excellent (I think Edward de Bono is truly brilliant and isn’t popular with the academics because he is popular and writes accessibly).
Health requires our adaptability and our creativity. And there are simple things we can do to develop these in our lives.
While most of our lives are relatively stable most of the time it is also true that at any time it is likely for something to be changing. It may be something major (like a cancer scare, a discovery or loss of faith, a divorce or falling in love) or something minor (a new train timetable or a small additional task at work).
And so we are called on to be adaptable. This means that in some way our lives are changing almost all the time. And this can be very tiring. Especially if we don’t feel that we don’t have the time to sit back and assess what is going on.
There is much wisdom in the idea of having a day off every week. And an annual holiday too. In our societies where money increasingly reigns this is becoming more and more difficult. We are often in a situation of chronic low grade stress where we don’t ever get a clear break. So times of meditation and relaxation are a great idea. If you find your mind wonders when you meditate (as mine does) you might like to try something with movement like yoga or qi gong. Enjoying comedies shouldn’t be neglected either. Laughter is delightful and uplifting and good for us. (Norman Cousins believes he cured himself of a life threatening disease by watching funny movies.) All these are ways of getting more space into our lives.
Sometimes a more active response is called for and we need to modify our situation. Something creative is needed. The best exercise I know for developing our creativity is to get a piece of paper with squares on it. You could buy some graph paper and divide it up or use a ruler. The challenge is to think of as many ways as possible to divide a square into four equal parts. It has to be a new idea each time, not just a slight twist on the same idea. This is surprisingly demanding.
Another option would be to pursue some of the ideas of Edward de Bono for deliberate design. These are too numerous to mention. He has authored many books, most of which are excellent (I think Edward de Bono is truly brilliant and isn’t popular with the academics because he is popular and writes accessibly).
Health requires our adaptability and our creativity. And there are simple things we can do to develop these in our lives.
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