Creating is risky. Each inky line on the page takes courage. Stringing words together to form a sentence is a bold decision that you will either be celebrated or vilified for. A photograph taken of a stranger will cause your heart to stall momentarily. Every venture, both big and small into the world of the arts requires a dose of audacity. Grit and a narrowing in on the subject at hand is necessary to get the job done. Why take such risks in the first place? Trying your hand at something new while being fully aware that you might fail is terrifying. Attempting to keep a small flame of hope lit within you only to watch the wind blow it out in an instant is a small tragedy that we don’t care to risk. It is much easier to choose safe activities. Pastimes that don’t require you to put yourself out there. Pastimes that don’t raise your heart rate or require you to be brave. But what are we jeopardizing when we avoid the risk of putting ourselves out there? Who are we becoming, individually and as a society, when we consume more than we create?

Consuming is easy. Plug in your ear buds and press play and opinions that you will soon adopt as your own will stream into your ear canals and squirm into your brain cells where they will make themselves at home. Turn on the TV and watch the highest rated shows that are picked for your viewing pleasure. Numb yourself with the pretend lives of others so you can forget about your real life during your few precious hours of free time. Sit on the couch and let your phone be your guide as it pulls you from app to app, filling your eyes with constant bursts of photos and topics it knows will keep you attentive. Watch as time races forward and yet you’ve gone no where at all. You are still there, sitting on the couch, no different than you were before. No risk taken, no harm done, right?

Something is amiss. This is not how it was meant to be. Why did we go through everything we’ve been through, only to find ourselves sitting in this place of fear. This place of numbing ourselves. Our own children are braver than we are, taking risks left and right. Trying to write out the alphabet for the first time, or forming a club with friends during recess, or showing up for their first baseball practice. They create all damn day while we waste away on our phones, taking the easy route through life. And yet, we wonder why we don’t feel fulfilled. We wonder where our spark for life went.

I’m here to remind you of something you already know deep down. This default setting of constantly consuming is rotting away our brains and our creativity. Turns out, sitting back and watching the world go by without taking risks isn’t safe at all. We all have something to offer and we must be vigilant in putting ourselves out there even though we might fail. Even when we don’t know what we are doing. Even if we have to scribble out our work and start over. Our time here is short and we cannot afford to sit in the passenger seat our entire god damn life and watch the years pass us by. We have to be bold and trust ourselves. We have to be willing to fail in order to achieve a greatness that dwells within us. Each trust fall into our own creative endeavors strengthens our backbone and fortifies a belief in ourselves.

I beg of you- balance out the consuming pastimes with the creative. We all have something to say and there are countless ways to say it. Choose your medium and go for it. You might fail and doubt yourself and your abilities but that is part of the process. Maybe you will need to scrap the whole plan and have to carve out another route. The tangled woods of indecision and uncertainty will seem dark and treacherous, but you will slowly learn to orient yourself and find your way. You will get comfortable in this new land and begin to forge your own path. You will feel proud of your work and you yourself will morph in the process. The sweat and tears will all be worth it as you look back and see how far you’ve come. But none of this can come to fruition if you are too scared to step foot into the forest. So turn off the TV and pick up a journal, a drawing pad, a violin or open up a new document on your computer and get to work. Embrace the risk of creating and in doing so you will get to know yourself more deeply and put your mark on the world around you.