To live happier, consume less and create more

If you want to be happier, consume less and create more.

Creativity has nothing to do with being artistic — although for some people, that’s how they express their creative instinct, by creating art, books, or music.

But every single human being is creative and to create is one of our core instincts.

Carl Jung, the famous psychotherapist, identified 5 core human instincts:

 - hunger

 - sexuality

 - reflection

 - activity

 - creativity

You are creating something every day — through your work, craft, and most importantly, through yourself.

You’re always creating your life, every single day…but it’s easy to get lost in over-consumption and let your creativity instinct dry out.

A lot of people I meet are consuming too much and intentionally creating too little.

Consuming too much news, social media, podcasts, food, buying stuff.

I am confident this is one of the leading causes of feeling unhappy and unfulfilled because if we don’t exercise our core instincts, we wither.

So how can you create more?

Again, remember that creativity is so much broader than making forms of art (although making different forms of art is creative!)

Creating more could look like:

 - making dinner instead of going out to eat

 - writing in a journal vs. listening to another podcast

 - gardening or arranging flowers in your home vs. scrolling social media

 - learning a new skill vs. zoning out to Netflix

And of course, making any form of art — watercolors, writing a blog, poetry, coloring, taking photos, singing — is an awesome way to practice your creativity, but only if that’s what calls to you, don’t limit yourself to that!

To be human is to be creative. To be happier is to practice your creativity intentionally.