Creating

[laronius]

Last night at a family party my sister was talking about her "Creation Journal." What she does is write down how she wants the following day to go, how she wants to "create" her day. She then acts on that plan. She said she was amazed at how often her plans come together in creating what she had envisioned.

Apart from the obvious benefits that come from planning effectively it made me ponder on the potential spiritual effects of planning with the thought of creating. This reminded me of a talk by Pres Uchtdorf from some years ago. Here are some of the excerpts:

The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before...

Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty...

To what end were we created? We were created with the express purpose and potential of experiencing a fulness of joy. Our birthright—and the purpose of our great voyage on this earth—is to seek and experience eternal happiness. One of the ways we find this is by creating things...

Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before—colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter...

The more you trust and rely upon the Spirit, the greater your capacity to create. That is your opportunity in this life and your destiny in the life to come...

As you take the normal opportunities of your daily life and create something of beauty and helpfulness, you improve not only the world around you but also the world within you.

I have often wondered about the amount of time we spend in the temple learning about THE Creation. Obviously it has significant meaning in the plan of salvation. But when we consider our potential destiny as creators ourselves it makes me wonder if there aren't additional lessons we are supposed to learn and apply right here and now in preparation for that future. 

I know from personal experience that knowledge is power, specifically spiritual knowledge. For example, I am more apt to make better choices in what I eat when I consider it from the perspective of following the word of wisdom than simply what nutritionists might say, even if it the same advice. This makes me think I ought to develop a more creation oriented perspective in making plans, setting goals and just an overall approach to life. That might give me an added boost to accomplish the things I set out to do and help prioritize where I spend my time and energy. Any thoughts?

Edited October 30, 2021 by laronius

[askandanswer]

I suspect that your sister is the best one to turn to for thoughts on this topic. 

[Anddenex]

I think what your sister is doing is awesome, and I think it is very similar to the Self-Reliance "Goals." I don't know if you have every gone through the Self-Reliance course but this reminds me of what your sister is doing. Use Time Wisely.

[Fether]

There is always a spiritual creation before a physical creation. I am a firm believer that we create our own reality by the things we tell ourselves and the things we choose to believe.

[mikbone]

Yup, creation is one of the things that distinguishes us from the animals.

I don't care if it is music, carpentry, code, cooking, needlepoint, whatever.

The more you create the better you become at creation.

If you don’t recognize your ability to create you are missing out.  We are all given talents but those talents will not bloom until we nourish them.

The amount of humanity that is unskilled and unaware is terrifying, imho.

The following article is one of my favorites.  An excellent study with sobering findings. 

Unskilled and Unaware of it: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments, David Dunning, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Jan 2000

Edited October 31, 2021 by mikbone

[laronius]

10 hours ago, Fether said:

There is always a spiritual creation before a physical creation. I am a firm believer that we create our own reality by the things we tell ourselves and the things we choose to believe.

This is a great point. The spiritual creation had to happen first and not just some vague idea of how things are to be. Having vague hopes or belief system is going to lack the power to truly bring about the reality we seek. I think it's closely tied to the hope for a better world principle.

[Traveler]

When I was in high school taking seminary I had a teacher that touched on this topic with not so much of a different twist but different view of living our lives.  The seminary teacher was talking about dating.  Especially towards guys it was suggested that before our date (picking up our date) that we retire to our bedroom in prayer and there share our plan for the date and what we intended to accomplish.  That we should not leave anything out.  For example if we planned to kiss the girl that we should discuss this with our Father in Heaven and seek his help and assistance to accomplish our goal(s).  Then when our date was over we should retire to the privacy of our bed room and report on how things went and give thanks to G-d for what we accomplished and learned.

I though this sounded quite logical and something I ought to employ.  What I quickly discovered about dating is often my plan was out of step with my Father in Heaven and what I ought to do.  The reporting afterwards opened a landscape of learning - both of things I ought to have planned and done as well as things I planned and attempted to do that was unproductive or counter productive.

What I learned from my experiences is that every morning as I get up and before I start my day that I have a morning prayer and go over the things I plan and need to do and seek my Father in Heaven's approval.   Then each night before I get in bed to sleep - I report on how things went and what I learned or accomplished.  Much time is also spent in thanking my Father of his help and blessings throughout the day - including preventing me from doing things that would have been counter productive.    Besides my morning and evening prayers - I will also include this prayer of planning and reporting with many other things of importance or challenge.  For example if I have to deal with something or someone concerning events that have gone very wrong and I believe require correction or attention - I employ this cycle of planning and reporting in prayer.

I have come to the conclusion that planning turns out much better when I realize that I will report to G-d how thing turned out.  I have come to believe that this is a type and shadow of the final judgment - that things I left out of expressing in the planning phase because it was inappropriate (thinking I can have such unpresented to G-d) become very apparent (often embarrassing) when I reported later on how thing went. 

 

The Traveler