Tag Archives: ted talks

Sick Day! And Resulting TED Video

I had a great blog post planned for today, all about the difficult task of finishing projects. But, ironically enough, I made a terrific start of it, got sick, and now can’t bring myself to finish it.

So I’m taking the easy way out: TED talks. While this video has nothing to do with fairy tales (unless you, like me, see fairy tales in all things, especially mythically charged animals like crows), it has everything to do with creativity and inspiration. When you’re stuck on a problem, whether it’s a plot line or a blog post or painting the bathroom, our natural impulse is to feel frustrated and blast ourselves with a double-barreled shot of mean-spirited self talk. But instead of drill sergeant sadism, our stuck selves deserve our compassion and tenderness. And a little indulgence. Sometimes the best solutions come when we give ourselves permission to stop hammering on the problem, and instead do something else entirely, something playful and distracting and engaging. Then we can come back to our problem refreshed with a brand, new perspective. (The caveat here is that you do have to come back to the problem eventually.)

Speaking of new perspectives, I hope you enjoy this video. It’s about reframing a problem and realizing that it might not be a problem at all, but an incredibly powerful solution.

Your creativity does not have to kill you, or even hurt you

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, talks brilliantly about creativity and our cultural relationship to it.

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