Hurry Ruins Saints As Well As Artists

One of the dangers of being a creative professional—someone whose job requires constantly churning out creative work—is that it’s easy to become numb to the beauty of creativity. What was once a blessing can start to feel like a curse. In our new 99U book, Todd Henry of the Accidental Creative makes a compelling case for the “Act of Unnecessary Creation,” which essentially means taking time out of your day (or your week) to slow down and focus on creative side projects as a healthy counterpoint to client work. Henry believes that Unnecessary Creation protects your mental mojo and develops your creative voice: You and I are not machines, and no matter how efficient we become at delivering brilliant work, we need regular reminders of our capacity to contribute something unique. We need to stay in touch with the intrinsic desire to strive for the “next” that has driven progress throughout the ages. The twentieth-century mystic Thomas Merton wrote, “There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular—and too lazy to think of anything better. Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success, and they are in such a haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. And when the madness is upon them, they argue that their very haste is a species of integrity.” Merton elegantly articulates how the pressure of the create-on-demand world can cause us to look sideways at our peers and competitors instead of looking ahead. The process of discovering and refining your voice takes time. Unnecessary Creation grants you the space to discover your unique aptitudes and passions through a process of trial, error, and play that won’t often be afforded to you otherwise. Initiating a project with no parameters and no expectations from others also forces you to stay self-aware while learning to listen to and follow your intuition.