Lana Vaughan

are great if you are baking cookies. But not if you are being creative. By it’s very nature creativity is not uniform. It is individual. Even if it starts with a common theme or media or even a pattern. Creativity takes on the perspective, the strengths and the flaws of the creator. It is the uniqueness, the rarity, the personal that makes it beautiful and valuable.

Right now on the internet there are millions of bloggers who write on every topic imaginable. They add their experience, their perspective, their opinions and they take the collective risk to hit the publish button and set their words free. Some have thousands of followers and others write day after day without a single comment or maybe even a single reader.

But each is finding their own way, each is writing their own words. You can get a template for your blog. You can add the recommended plugins and widgets. You can follow the “3 points and a picture” format. But what is totally you is the words you chose and the words you chose to omit.

There are a couple of dozen bloggers I read regularly but none of their blogs is as important to me as mine is. I can read their words but only I can write mine.

Who wants a cookie?

Years ago as a single mother I would save up enough to take my son out for dinner. He would get to choose whatever he wanted from the menu while I was doing the same. When the orders were placed he told the server what he had decided on. It was his choice and he expressed it clearly. However, when the meals arrived he would look at his plate with the food he had chosen and look at my plate and the food I had chosen. Suddenly, he didn’t want what he had asked for. He wanted what I had ordered. Since I wasn’t about to waste food or money I would trade with him. Until one night I ordered what really sounded good to me. Liver and onions. It came with mashed potatoes and peas. He no longer wanted to trade.

The thing is I didn’t order liver and onions because he would eat it if he didn’t like his own order. I ordered liver and onions because I like liver and onions. It really was what I wanted. No object lesson. I didn’t suffer through my dinner. I enjoyed it. He sat eating his dinner amazed that I actually liked my dinner. The waitress had asked us both same question, “What would you like?” and we both had answered. We both got what we asked for. I was very satisfied with my decision and my dinner. He had to accept that what he asked for and got was good.

How often do you want to trade with someone because you are not satisfied with what you asked for?

How often are you bewildered by someone being happy with a decision that is not your taste?

How do you like your liver and onions?

A wise man once said “People vote with their money and their feet”. I agree with him.

Putting your money into the people, projects and things that resonate with your values is one of the quickest ways to show your agreement and support. Politicians know donors are more important than registered voters. Kickstarter is based on strangers believing in the vision of others and making them reality. Marketing and Advertising are a multi billion dollar industry built on nothing but creating desire and filling it with the item de jour.

Everyday there are hundred of opportunities to join in or be part of something bigger than yourself. It may be as simple as meeting a friend for a walk or a cup of coffee. It may be sitting by the bed of a sick relative, helpless to change or heal them but simply offering comfort by your presence. It may be standing up for someone or sitting down beside them. It may be lending a hand or picking up a hammer. It may be cheering the one in the arena or it may be stepping onto the battle field yourself.

Everyday your money and your feet go somewhere at your direction. Choose wisely. Your vote matters.

What did you support today?

Who did you support today?

What values did you support today?

What are you going to do tomorrow?

Do those words make you shutter?

Do you have the patience to assembly an Ikea bookcase?

Have you been training with Legos since you were a child?

If they put all the pieces in a box, give you instructions in pictures and include the only tools you need, can you do it?

Or do you think outside the delivery box?

Do you have a few tools that are old friends, feeling natural in your hand?

Is there a project you envisioned, planned out, gather supplies and created all on your own?

Have you stood by watching a skilled craftsman or the rare master craftsman as they explained the nuance of a technique or the secret of a process?

Everyday we are offered the opportunity to put together lives and people and memories.

Everyday we have the choice to just slap together the bookcase, grab a cold drink and pat ourselves on the back.

Everyday we have the chance to take the time to learn and think and feel and craft for ourselves.

Everyday some assembly is required.