Make Yourself Happier

I have a new pet theory.

It arises out of conversations I’ve had about retirement. And yet I think it applies to people of all ages, in all life stages.

Here it is: Creation is inherently more fulfilling than consumption. In fact, creativity is an essential component of long-term happiness.

Before some of you feel sad and play the “but I’m just not creative card,” let me explain further.

Given my advanced age, 57, I’ve begun to contemplate what a next chapter of my life might look like. I won’t call it “retirement,” because I’ve never subscribed to the idea that, at some point, I’ll just stop working and golf or volunteer, wear cardigans, let my ear hair get truly wild.

I’ll pause while you consider that image…

As I talk to my peers and to some of my friends older than me, I often hear this admonition regarding my next act: “Make sure you know how you’re going to spend your time. Otherwise, you might be miserable.” In fact, many of my friends who have already retired regale me with stories of their own despair, their aimlessness, how much they miss the workplace. Seriously! They miss meetings. Deadlines. Having “a sense of purpose.”

This always amazes me, because I’ve never had an iota of trouble filling my time outside the office. I find myself wondering what they mean. Are we that different?

Over time I’ve interrogated these feelings and the people who have them, and I’ve figured out that, almost to a person, the folks who are miserable in retirement are largely what I refer to as “consumers.” They watch endless shows on Netflix and Prime and Max. They go out to eat at fine restaurants. They read bestsellers for pleasure. They shop at fancy boutiques, acquire new cars, wear the latest clothes. And at some point, they find that they’ve watched all the shows, eaten at all the Michelin-starred and/or trendy restaurants, read all the latest potboilers, worn all the Canada Goose parkas while driving in their G-Wagons.

But this isn’t just a case of affluenza or wealth-weariness. This feeling is also common among my friends who binge-watch sit-coms on linear TV, try all the pizzas on DoorDash, and relentlessly order the latest gear from Uniqlo or Nordstrom Rack. It truly is a function of relentless consumption, of the fact that, in my humble opinion, consuming is a kind of eventual dead end of fulfillment, such that you can become immune to its pleasures.

On the other hand, my friends who make things – the colloquial definition of being creative – are wildly happier and more fulfilled than those who don’t. And please note that my definition of making things is vast and elastic, including: writing poetry or essays or short stories or journal entries; playing guitar or piano or singing or DJing; gardening or doing landscape architecture; cooking or baking; making cocktails from scratch; knitting or sewing or quilting or scrapbooking or crafting; painting or sculpting or sketching or working with ceramics. Essentially, being creative means making something where once there was nothing. It’s any act of self-expression or invention. It's typically physically and/or mentally demanding in some way. It requires you to lean forward, to engage, and to make decisions. It’s the opposite of letting Succession or Monday Night Football wash over you in the dark. It’s the opposite of drawing a bath and getting lost in the latest Grisham.

And let me be clear here, my point is not that consumption is bad. Reading in the bath and letting the Golden State Warriors game bathe me in its wonder are two of my favorite activities. But what I’m saying is that they, alone, these acts of consumption, are not enough to build a life around. At some point we feel full. At some point our brains and our hearts have simply had enough input, like a bucket whose water has become a pregnant curved surface at the top and threatens to spill over the sides at any moment. At some point we need to bring something into the world, instead of just suckling at its teat.

So what? So this: If you’ve read this far, and you’re thinking, fine and good, but I’m not creative, I don’t know how to make or do anything, I offer this: Find something.

Find something that involves you imposing your will or whimsy on the world as it is, and that results in something tangible and new that would have never come into being without you. The good news is that most of these pursuits are free or profoundly inexpensive. Granted, if you decide to become a harpist or a Christo-style sculptor, you’re gonna have some cost-prohibitive overhead. So start with some smaller things.

Create a succulent garden on a windowsill. Write three pages in your journal every morning. Try your hand at poetry or painting or gardening or rug-hooking. Learn how to make a soufflé or pastries or vegetable soup. Buy a sketchpad. Take long walks and take camera-phone pictures of whatever moves you. Make sculptures out of found items. Create an Instagram account under an alias to share your work. Or hang a shelf in your basement to display your handiwork. Or just keep it to yourself. Create for creation’s sake, and let anything that arises thereafter be icing on your already delicious cake.

And by the way: You absolutely don’t have to give up on your favorite consumption. But you might find that consumption undertaken in the afterglow of creation is infinitely more rewarding than it is standalone.

You may find that moderating consumption with creation is a path to never being bored. To coming to know yourself and to enjoy being with yourself a little bit more. To feeling as if you have no need to agonize over “filling your time” anymore now that you’ve discovered the sheer joy of creation.

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It's worth a try.

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