From Competition to Creation

I have an affirmation tape that was given to me by a friend. I had never heard of affirmations before falling ill but for the uninitiated I'll explain; affirmations are positive statements made by a person with a soothing voice on all aspects of life: health, happiness, prosperity, thankfulness, etc. You are supposed to listen to them daily and in a period of about three months your subconscious mind will reflect these positive thoughts instead of the negative or fearful thoughts that used to run in the background. In the affirmation that particularly caught my ear and attention, the soothing voice intones: "It is now time to stop living out of fear or anger or competition and move toward living out of gratitude, creation and the joy of self expression."  Quite a shift for me.

 I have been competitive since the age of 11, in a variety of sports (especially swimming) and always in school. I noticed that our society rewards competitors and thus striving and straining became my MO. Our society can make any activity into a competition. In my stage of life parents compete through the successes and triumphs of their children, as well as through race results, salaries, and job titles of their own. Influence and power are also seductive and lure us to compete with others in our sphere, whether it be paid work or volunteer positions or opinions offered in a book club.

Alternatively, creative enterprises make us happy in a more peaceful manner.  Not that we can give up jobs or parenting, but we can tackle hobbies and add activities that are not worth money, but provide a great deal of satisfaction. In my downtime these days I have taken to coloring and making mandalas, and to knitting (Rob does not believe this possible), and to writing more on this blog. I think that when we make something new we fulfill our functions as co-creators of this world. Cooking does this too, though I see the benefits more through the efforts of friends rather than through my own work in the kitchen!

So I am shifting, from competition to creating.... if not things of beauty, then at least new neural connections in my brain. That may be all my knitting will accomplish, but a usable scarf would be nice, too.