Listen to your Inner Child

by Melissa Ivers

I’ve learned more about creativity from babysitting my 2 year old niece than any book or class ever could.

In a single afternoon, my niece Lucy and I:

Splashed in puddles

Picked flowers and put them in our hair

Chased the ice cream truck

Created a new game using nothing but a stick and a chair

In doing these, we found joy in the mundane, took inspiration from our environment to create art, silenced our voice of judgment and listened to our impulses, and created a new game out of the minimal resources we had. We laughed and created. This is what creativity is all about and it came so naturally to Lucy, just as it did for me as a child.

Creativity is unlearned. As we get older, the rain becomes an inconvenience, the flowers become a household chore, the ice cream truck becomes a phone call interruption, and a stick is used for nothing but stoking the fire.

I challenge you to look at the world from the perspective of your 2 year old self. Splash in puddles, pick flowers, chase the ice cream truck, and create silly games out of household objects. When we stop seeing the world for what it is, and instead see it for all that it could be, we can create something really beautiful together.