Are you from the school of thought that believes an artist should endure extreme pain to be great at their craft? Can you write an intriguing story if you’ve never slept in your car? Can your film portray emotions that move people to tears if you haven’t experienced heartbreaking loss? The answer… probably depends on the person.
I’ve known a number of talented people who’ve had it pretty good in life and have been blessed with great talent.
One thing’s certain - complacency can kill creativity. Bad situations, although yucky to be in, push us to do more. They get us out of our comfort zones through pure frustration alone. If we get too comfortable, the only thing that grows might be our waistline.
In challenging our comfort zones, our quote of the week comes from Author and Activist Peter McWilliams. McWilliams has written many life-changing books on self-empowerment. In 1998 he admitted to the world that he had AIDS and Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Peter McWilliams met an untimely end when in 2000 he was found dead in his apartment. During the time of his death his elderly mother’s home had been used as a bond for his Marijauna arrest. McWilliams had been using Marijauna to combat the nausea caused by his AIDS medications. McWilliams fought for the use of medical marijuana as evidenced in a few of his books. His advocating medicinal Marijauna sparked a DEA investigation which later led to his arrest.
The following quote is a paragraph from his book “Do It. Let’s Get Off Our Buts.”
It goes like this:
“Whenever we do something new, its falls outside the confines of the comfort zone. In even contemplating a new action, we feel guilt, unworthiness, fear, hurt feelings and/or anger---all those emotions we generally think of as “uncomfortable….The irony is that the feelings we have been taught to label “uncomfortable” are, in fact, among the very tools necessary to fulfill our dreams. As it turns out, the bricks used to build the walls of the comfort zone are made of gold.”
