with John Chaffee, Ph.D. @www.thinkingworld.com

What Do YOU Think?
Developing Creativity


About the Artist

Living a Creative Life Do you feel that your life could use a boost of creative energy? What's holding you back? What would your life be like if your were using your full creative powers? Share your thoughts so they can be posted on this MESSAGE BOARD. Hello John After reading your book, I found myself looking back on a period of my own life. I hit the cross-roads, and was forced to begin thinking about things in a different manner in order to move on (or perhaps move up) with my life. My concept of critical thinking was to always be critical of myself. To never allow myself to be happy with any of the decisions I had made. Maintaining healthy relationships with friends and loved ones becomes virtually impossible when you feel you don't deserve such amazing people in your life. As a result of a complete lack of clarity in my thought processes, I was impatient with my friends and family, self-depreciating to the point of making their lives miserable, unable to perform up to my potential at work, and generally unable to recognize the great life that I have. I was encouraged by doctors to medicate myself to wellness, but I made the decision to change the way I thought by taking a long look at how I viewed the world. The result? One year later I have such a positive outlook on things, that I can barely recognize the person I was. Rather than always thinking in the negative, I have learned to think in positive terms. My creativity, patience, attention span, and decision making process have all improved. I, through the power of thought, have made my life what it should be -- happy. I encourage everyone to recognize that the way we think is so important to the quality of life we have. To analyze the way you think, and the decisions you make can change your life. Instead of not pursuing a goal because you think you will not succeed, look at why you think that long enough, and you are likely to see that it is self-depreciation as opposed to logic -- or at least that is what I found with my life. -- Jane O'Connor, Canada Creative Parenting Raising a child well is a challenging job both physically and mentally, demanding an extensive amount of creativity. As a single parent I try different techniques to encourage my child, thinking of new and exciting ways to keep her focused in her early stages of learning. For example, each month of the year and day of the week has a tale behind it, as I embroider the subjects with stories in order to enhance her learning. I play with her by pretending that I am the daughter and she is the mother, which helps me understand how she sees me as a mother and provides her with an opportunity to act out her feelings. I try to stimulate her creativity (and preserve my sanity) by involving her in the process of cooking, giving her the skin from peeled vegetables and a pot so she make her own "soup." Using catalogs, we cut out pictures of furniture, rugs, and curtains, and she pastes them onto cartons to create her own interior decor: vibrant living rooms, plush bedrooms, colorful family rooms. Beautiful bathtub boats are crafted from aluminum paper; we "go bowling" with empty soda cans and a ball; and she stars in "track meets" by running an obstacle course we set up. Creativity is an instinctive drive inside of me that is expressed in so many ways for her: I am a seamstress for Halloween, a counselor for emotional distress, a nurse for life's unavoidable mishaps, a party planner, a gourmet chef, an award-winning teacher, and especially a friend. -- Darys Estrella Creative Cooking One of the most creative aspects of my life is my diet. I have been a vegetarian for the past five years, while the rest of my family has continued to eat meat. I had to overcome many obstacles to make this lifestyle work for me, including family dissension. The solution was simple: I had to learn how to cook creatively. I have come to realize that my diet is an ongoing learning process. I slowly evolved from a person who could cook food only if it came from a can, to someone who could make bread from scratch and grow yogurt cultures. I find learning new things about nutrition and cooking healthful foods very relaxing and rewarding. I like being alone in my house baking bread; there is something very comforting about the aroma. Most of all I like to experiment with different ways to prepare foods, because the ideas are my own. Even when an effort is less than successful, I find pleasure in the knowledge that I gained from the experience. I discovered recently, for example, that eggplant is terrible in soup! Making mistakes seems to be a natural way to increase creativity, and I now believe that people who say they don't like vegetables simply have not been properly introduced to them! -- Hadley Teitworth Creating a Tropical Paradise As a tropical fish hobbyist, I create an ecosystem most suited to the variety of fish I keep. My most recent choice of fish has been pacus, a close cousin of the Piranha native to South America and Africa. I then added two barracuda of the same approximate size. These two genera are nervous, aggressive fish not ordinarily found together in nature. As "dither fish," which are used as a distraction between two or more genera, I chose two Jack Dempseys, which are large, territorial cichlids. Since these fish require different habitats it was necessary to create a blend of environments. The pacus need an area to be well planted, providing cover, which I placed in the corners of the aquarium. The Dempseys require rocks, caves, and tree branches to do their cavorting and establish their domain. The barracuda, being the most dominant and aggressive of the lot, got the center area of the tank to swim about freely. When raising fish, you become familiar with their distinct personalities, and you have to be both knowledgeable and creative to develop appropriate habitats for them. -- Joshua Randall Creative Carpentry After quitting the government agency I was working at because of too much bureaucracy, I was hired as a carpenter at a construction site, although I had little knowledge of this profession. I learned to handle a hammer and other tools by watching other co-workers, and within a matter of weeks I was skilled enough to organize my own group of workers for projects. Most of my fellow workers used the old-fashioned method of construction carpentry, building panels with inefficient and poorly made bracings. I redesigned the panels in order to save construction time and materials. My supervisor and site engineer were thrilled with my creative ideas, and I was assigned progressively more challenging projects, including the construction of an office building that was completed in record time. -- Joseph Reyes Hair Braiding My area of creativity is hair braiding, an activity that requires skill, talent, and patience that is difficult for most people to accomplish. Braiding hair in styles that are being worn today consists of braiding small to tiny braids, and it may include adding artificial hair to make the hair look fuller. It takes anywhere from ten to sixteen hours depending on the type of style that is desired: the smaller the braids, the longer it takes. In order to braid, I had to learn how to determine the right hair and color for people who wanted extensions, pick out the right style that would fit perfectly on my customers' faces, learn to cut hair in an asymmetric fashion, put curls in the braids, and know the sequence of activities. Doing hair is a rewarding experience for me because when I am through with my work, my customers think the result is gorgeous! -- Tanya Jordan