Consume Less, Create More
How to Live Happy
There’s a song from the musical “Hamilton,” which is my husband’s favorite musical (and possibly the only one he’s sat through so there might be a correlation there) where it goes, “talk less, smile more.”
As I was writing this blog post, I could not get this song out of my head only it became:
Consume Less for Talk Less and Create More for Smile More.
Consume less, create more. Don’t let them know what you’re really looking for.
I know! I know! How am I even an American (everyone who isn’t an American is asking), but I think that this is really true when it comes to cultivating your own happiness.
LET’S TALK ABOUT CONSUMPTION
One of my writer friends, A.S. King wrote on social media today about how social media tweaks our visual consumption patterns toward anger. The ads also tweak us toward want.
That visual consumption of social media tends to make some of us very grumpy. And it also can twist our views of people and society. Sometimes social media reinforces the bubble that we live in. Sometimes social media pops the bubble that we live in. But it’s all often fueled by likes/engagements and controversy. One of my friends that I saw yesterday was talking about how he doesn’t even like sports posts anymore because of all the ‘hot takes’ posts meant to dredge up comment and feedback.
Controversy sells. Anger sells. You take a “HOT TAKE” about a controversial subject (“Larry Bird is the GOAT,” “ABBA is the GOAT,” “The Easter Bunny is the GOAT”) and suddenly your page views spike. You use that engagement to get advertisers to pay you to hawk your stuff.
And all that negativity? It can get addictive. That adrenalin rush of outrage, right?
We start to consume it on social media and it starts to consume us. Don’t get me wrong, anger can be a fantastic force for positive change in a community when things are wrong. But contrived controversy? That’s a consumption we can probably do without.
THE OTHER KIND OF CONSUMPTION
The other kind of consumption is that kind where you buy and buy and buy and buy.
A coffee mug featuring a manatee unicorn? Need it.
A new mushroom bed because your bed isn’t cool anymore? Need it.
A Netflix, Hulu, Paramount Plus, Apple Plus subscription? Totally need it.
All that consumption does help companies that employee people, but is it helping you? That’s kind of the question. You get a bit of a rush from the purchase, but often that rush quickly fades and you want to feel good so what do you do? You buy something else, looking for another rush.
LET’S TALK ABOUT THE OTHER IDE
Over on the Happier Blog, they write,
“Carl Jung, the famous psychotherapist, identified 5 core human instincts:
- hunger
- sexuality
- reflection
- activity
- creativity
“I am confident this is one of the leading causes of feeling unhappy and unfulfilled because if we don’t exercise our core instincts, we wither.
So how can you create more?
Again, remember that creativity is so much broader than making forms of art (although making different forms of art is creative!)
Creating more could look like:
- making dinner instead of going out to eat
- writing in a journal vs. listening to another podcast
- gardening or arranging flowers in your home vs. scrolling social media
- learning a new skill vs. zoning out to Netflix”
Science agrees. Being happy helps boost creativity, but creativity also helps boost happiness.
Tamlin Conner, a New Zealand researcher surveyed more than 650 young adults about what they created each day and their emotions each day. As written in The Greater Good,
“Even after controlling for this possibility in their analyses, though, the researchers found that people who were more creative on one day still experienced more flourishing and positive emotions like energy, enthusiasm, and excitement the next day (though not other positive emotions, like cheerfulness). This led Conner to conclude that engaging in small daily acts of creativity may influence overall well-being rather than simply making us feel good in the moment.
But can everyone reap these benefits? Certain personality traits have been linked to creativity in the past, such as openness to experience. Yet, when Conner and her colleagues ran the analyses, they found that the benefits of engaging in creativity were similar across different personality types.
“We were actually pleased that personality made no difference in the link between creativity and well-being,” she said. “This suggests that everyone and anyone can benefit from introducing creativity into their daily lives.”
So go out there. Create. Try to consume a tiny bit less, or consume things that make you think, maybe? That inspire you to create? It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. But if you’re hoping to be a bit happier, maybe come on over to the creativity side. We’d love to have you here with us.
SOME COOL LINKS
Ten habits of highly creative people.
Five tips for reaching your creative potential.
Seven ways to foster creativity in your kids.