. . . a first rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.
      - Abraham Maslow

If we do creative work in our day job, it may be best to let the field lie fallow, to read or meditate or sleep during our downtime. Downtime nourishes creative work. Burnout is a real thing. And so this “gentle art” applies mostly to those of us not engaged in creative work in our day job.

If however your day job involves doing something best described as uncreative (see Rule 4: Do something unique and important in some small market) – important and unique though it may be, a creative side line, a creative work of love, can add a huge amount to your life. It will nourish your life. It will give your life an element unattainable any other way.

It could be painting. It could be improvisational dance. Making clothing for people you care about. Making guitars, or violins or making music with them. Create beauty in some aspect of your life. And persist at it. The rewards are in the persistence.

And, if you don’t do this creative work as your business, don’t care or even ask what others think of it. Pursue excellence in your own mind. Practice, work hard at it, work to perfect your art then let it go.

There is some special energy that comes from manifesting a beauty you imagine from inside yourself.

In a strange way, it sets you free.

. . .

The excerpt above is from an early draft of my upcoming book, The 45 Laws Of Living Life On Your Own Terms.