Ryan Leland

I think that creative individuals are not willing to give their finite time and energy very cheaply, for something that will only get them approval. So if the approval fuel isn’t satisfactory, people tend to get bored and complacent very quickly. I think creative people will tend to start fires to bring some risk and excitement to their uncreative jobs. If the game you’re playing isn’t big enough, you’ll do something to screw it up, just to make it interesting. Meaning you’ll slack off, and leave all your tasks till the last second, just to get a rush of adrenaline, and satisfaction.

I find it so disheartening in the corporate world, that the gift of being well rounded is as undervalued as it is. The ability to learn new skills very quickly, and be a very well rounded individual, is extremely important when it comes to becoming a successful entrepreneur. But, when you’re hired to do a task within a corperation, you are asked to specialize in a subset of those skills, and you will always peak very quickly, and begin to stagnate those other muscles that aren’t being used. This, for me, is when I began to feel frustrated, and feel like a loose cannon, even though that is not a natural  personality trait for me.

This sort of paints a picture of how I’ve felt very recently at a job, that I had very high hopes for. But I think there are many differences between looking for approval, and looking for appreciation in what you do.  I think if approval is what creates security in a persons life, appreciation is what creates the passion. Like, it’s if you were at the most amazing concert of your life, and somebody told you that the music was terrible. You’d probably laugh at the idiot, and keep on rocking out. Where I think approval really stems from insecurity.

I think appreciation is the fuel for the creative. I plan on looking for more of it in my life.