Please, Create

Even when you'd rather be a sloth on the couch

I am convinced that humans are crafted to create, but conditioned to consume.

For most of us, I imagine the time we spend consuming versus the time we spend creating is wildly disproportionate. Who among us, after all, pens a poem on the toilet anymore? Sings a novel tune on the treadmill? Splashes watercolor on canvas after putting the kids to bed?

We don’t have the energy, we say. We don’t have any more in us to give. We’ve used all of our daily brain power trying to negotiate with toddlers and make decisions at work and figure out what to make for supper for the MILLIONTH DAY IN A ROW (how can it be that our families need to eat every night?).

And so we allow ourselves, after producing and striving all day, to be entertained and pleased and doted upon. It is our reward for our hard work. We deserve a little pleasure. We scoop ice cream into bowls and scroll our phones and believe the lie that the screens we hold can and will meet our every need, desire, and dream.

We can buy anything we want.

We can watch anything we want.

We can learn anything we want.

We can listen to anything we want.

We can effectively fill our brains with stuff that others have created/designed/achieved/learned for us, so what need is there anymore for us to create anything for ourselves?

I hear that. But last week, the oddest thing happened to me. I woke up one day to find that looking at my phone made me feel physically ill. Scrolling my social media made me want to vomit. Listening to an audiobook gave me the jitters. Checking my email felt like my senses were being bombarded. It was like everything inside me was revolting against that tiny rectangle and all that it holds within it. Something inside me cried, Enough already! I’m sick from all this so-called pleasure, and I can’t take a minute more!

There’s brain science behind this. Each of our brains have something akin to a tiny scale inside them, where our pleasure and pain centers are held in delicate balance. Equilibrium is the goal. When we push on the pleasure side over and over again (like pouring another glass of wine, posting another selfie for more likes, ordering another package on Prime), the pain side has to work harder over time to maintain the balance. It has to even out all that pleasure. As a result, we find that what used to feel good doesn’t feel as good anymore, so we need more and more to satisfy ourselves. Eventually, it’s hard to enjoy those once-pleasurable things at all.

We can effectively fill our brains with stuff that others have created/designed/achieved/learned for us, so what need is there anymore for us to create anything for ourselves?

On the flip side, when we do hard things—that’s right, things that make us uncomfortable—the pleasure side of our brain rushes in to help us. It floods our system with feel-good chemicals, like dopamine, to get us through the difficulty and get our brain back in balance. So when we do things to challenge ourselves, like taking a cold plunge after the sauna or practicing yoga when we’d rather be sitting sloth-like on the couch, we are rewarded, ultimately, with good and natural feelings of pleasure.¹

It’s counterintuitive stuff. And I think it helps explain why what we think feels good (consuming) eventually begins to feel empty, and why what we think feels hard (creating) is actually the thing that’s going to bring us back to life again. [More thoughts on that here.]

Consumerism teaches us to adopt a scarcity mindset: it declares that there is not enough within us, so we must rely on external sources to fill us up and make us whole. But the truth is, we are children of the Most High God—the one who created hummingbird eggs and dew drops on spider webs and the creatures in the deep sea that no one’s even discovered yet. He literally makes things out of nothing. And we are created in his image,² which means we have it within us to do the same.

…What we think feels good (consuming) eventually begins to feel empty, and… what we think feels hard (creating) is actually the thing that’s going to bring us back to life again.

And when we do it—create something where there was nothing—something beautiful happens. We fall into step with the divine. We see realities around us that we were once blind to. Light filters into our souls. Possibilities arise. All that is glorious is magnified. The earth comes alive with delight around us.

Let me tell you—no episode of Ted Lasso has ever done that for me. [Season 3 coming out March 15, though, for anyone else waiting with bated breath.]

I know it’s hard sometimes, to find the mojo to create. But this is me, cheering you on, saying, it’s worth it! It’s worth it a million times over. It (probably) won’t make you rich or take away your wrinkles or anesthetize your feelings, but it will do what’s actually most important—heal your soul and make you more whole and bring you into the presence of God.

Finish reading this, but then put your phone (or computer) down. And then walk away and go be a rebel. Create something in this world that tells you you must consume. I promise—you won’t look back and wish you’d spent that time scrolling.

What do you delight in creating? Let me know in the comments below!

1. Information on the science of pleasure/pain from the book “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence” by Dr. Anna Lembke

2. Genesis 1:27