LETS PLAY MAKE-BELIEVE BY VALERIE GNIADY

When I was little my favorite thing to do was play make-believe. I was always creating; whether I was outside surviving the “harsh wilderness” or inside creating elaborate scenarios while playing “house”. My favorite part of it all was the time we would spend setting up the scenarios and going through all the details of our characters and their life. Most of the time I liked playing as “a teenager with blue, red, and silver stripes in my hair”. Oftentimes, I was in a love triangle with the Jonas Brothers, who were all apparently in love with me. I would spend more time setting up the details of the “make-believe scenario” than actually playing out that scenario. Maybe that means I’ve always preferred being a dreamer to going and living out that dream. I’ve seen that translate in my life now in the way I love to plan. I plan every detail of my life and sometimes find that I forget to enjoy the moment I am in or enjoy the things I have planned. I plan so much that it ruins the magic of the moment and the ambiguity of letting everything just play out as it’s supposed to. This habit of mine can be seen in my creative process where I thrive with ideation but struggle with execution. This is something that I’ve been actively working on fixing but it’s hard to fix an issue that is a trend seen in multiple aspects of my life. The fact that I am aware of the issue I believe is the first step in fixing my creative process.