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Phil has become one of my most popular Guest Bloggers. Here are his most recent thoughts on living creatively.

Living Creatively – The Opposite of Living as a Victim

I attended a class the other day about relationships and during one part of the class the instructor discussed living as a victim. The basic characteristics of a victim, the instructor said are:

Depression
Blaming others
Reacting
Laziness
Self-pity
Self-loathing

The instructor had many more descriptors and once she got going the class chimed in with many of their own. But I think you get the picture. Then the instructor asked, “What is the opposite of living as a victim?” We all sat there with stupid, blank looks on our faces until she said, “Living creatively is the opposite of living as a victim.”

Then she asked us what it meant to live creatively. The answers were slow at coming so she helped us out.

Being proactive
Jumping out of bed in the morning
Confident
Problem-solving
Being accountable
Being empowered

Some people surely are victims. If a bomb were to fall in our neighborhood, there would be victims. But for those of us who aren’t subjected to this kind of catastrophe, why would we choose to live as a victim?

There’s another side to this discussion as well. For those of us who live creatively, we need to be careful not to victimize those around us. A friend of mine had great success in her career right out of college. She came from a family that was not too well off financially and so she felt compelled to provide financial assistance whenever needed. Once her parents and her siblings benefited from her help, they began to seek her assistance more often until my friend had to finally stop helping. Actually, what she did was to turn off the financial help and she started helping out emotionally by talking to her siblings and helping them solve their own problems. What she told me one day was that the less she helped out financially, the better off her brothers and sisters were.

Living an empowered life, an independent life, for those who can, is one of the greatest joys we can experience in this world. In conclusion I will ask,

What can you do today to live a more creative life?