Give a child some paper and crayons and tell them to do whatever they want and they will shrug and idly doodle, quickly losing interest. Tell them to draw a nice picture for grandma and suddenly you see their creative spark fly as they diligently go to work.

As an educator, I’ve discovered to bring out the creativity in students, you can’t simply just leave things wide open. You have to set parameters and boundaries so they know what field they’re working in. A few will push those boundaries and want to step out (as expected), but they do so purposefully.

In a world that offers endless choice, the best course of action is to limit that choice for yourself. Set your own boundaries upon which you will be within and find the peace that comes with it. Otherwise, everything becomes overwhelming and we become anxious at all the options ahead of us.

For instance, I was at the grocery store recently and counted eight different brands of bread crumbs. Eight. I’m certain there are others as well if I was willing to venture enough, but we’re just talking about bread crumbs here, right? Having lived a neighbourhood away from a bean packaging factory, I can assure you the only thing different about the various cans of beans you find in the aisle are simply the label. I have to think the same thing is happening with other items such as those breadcrumbs.

Yet, wanting to make the best choice, many will spend unnecessary time deciding on which brand to get.
In my year of enough, there is a satisfaction of knowing that my limits are already set and I don’t care to look at anything else as I enjoy what’s available to me right now. Should something come along, I’ll make a note of it and move on without spending time dwelling on it.

While there’s a freedom of having choices available to us, which is a freedom I wouldn’t want taken away, the most effective use of it is to decide on what’s necessary and ignore the rest.