Why Are We Telling Creative People They Are Sick?
Our world needs creative people. These people change things; they find solutions to seemingly impossible problems and make the world interesting. Yet, for some reason, because they often work differently from the way “normal”people do, we label them as having ADHD, Autism or other similar conditions.
What did Leonardo Da Vinci and Isaac Newton have in common? They both had what we call severe ADHD today. They struggled to complete projects; their attention was all over the place, and they often completely forgot to sleep. They worked all hours of the day and would go days and months researching a single topic and then dropping it because something else caught their attention.
I guess that many of you who read the above paragraph can relate to it. I certainly can.
The problem is, if you find your attention is all over the place, and you struggle to complete projects because, at some point between the start and the finish, you lose interest in it, you will likely be labelled as having an illness. But do you?
I don’t think so. I believe it’s likely you have a creative brain, and when you try to force a creative brain into conforming with corporate norms, it struggles. Following strict guidelines and processes is not how a creative brain operates. A creative brain likes to question things, experiment and try new approaches in search of a better, more interesting way of doing things. Yet we are told this is not normal. We are told that it’s procrastination or a sign of ADHD.
How do you think Steve Jobs was able to build Apple into the company it is today? How do you think Elon Musk was able to build Space X or Tesla? It certainly wasn’t because they were corporate automatons following rules and norms. They questioned, experimented and tried new things. They upset the status quo and went down avenues of thinking considered stupid (Nicolaus Copernicus). But whether you liked their methods or not, they made the world a little bit better.
If we want to build a better world, I believe it’s essential to allow people to work in their natural way. For creative people, that means having a great deal of freedom to experiment and create new ideas and concepts; for more conformist people, they can work within the confines of accepted processes. When you mix both types of people, you have the beginnings of a highly effective team. A team that not only solves problems but also gets the work done.
Sadly, many creative people are told there is something wrong with them. That often leaves incredible people with abilities the world needs feeling their value to society is less or worse, given medication to “calm them down”. This is a terrible mistake. We need more creative people and less conformity. If we are to solve the climate crisis, we won’t do that with box-ticking automatons having a meeting. The only way the world’s problems will be resolved is if creative people are free to experiment, explore and try things.
This does not mean we don’t need conformists. We do. Conformists are the people who implement the solutions and ensure that they are consistently followed. It’s these people who ensure the solutions work. Without conformists, the world would be a mess.
My worry, though, is for some reason, we are labelling highly creative people as being mentally ill when they are not. History is full of incredible people who changed the world because they refused to conform. Instead, they questioned, explored and tested. Many were socially awkward, but that does not mean they were sick. They had amazing minds that wanted to change things and, in most cases, make the world better.
What’s wrong with that?
Thank you for reading my stories! 😊
If you would like to receive the best productivity and time management tips and tricks each week in one convenient email, you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter here.
You can also learn more about what I do here on my website