This blog post has appeared in Breeze: Borneo's Premier Lifestyle Magazine (Issue 106, February)
The first thing that comes into my mind upon seeing the word “Designer” is fashion designer. Nevertheless, the word “Designer” is not only limited to fashion designers, but also applies to all designers including buildings (interior and exterior designers), landscape designers, automobiles, cakes, food, furniture, website, books, magazines and so forth! The Oxford dictionary defines “designer” as “a person who plans the form, look, or workings of something before its being made or built, typically by drawing it in detail.” Now the question is, does this definition make you a designer?
I’m pretty sure that to a certain extent, you would say, “Yes, I am a designer.” At least once in your lifetime, you’ve experienced designing something consciously. For instance, your bedroom—you have designed your bedroom the way you wanted it because it’s your personal space. Have you ever written an essay? Writing an essay requires you to design the arrangement and organization of your contents. How about taking a photo? You design (in your head) how you want the photo look like. Professional photographers, especially editorial photographers require weeks (sometimes months) of planning and designing a photograph. Now, what is it about designers that seem to be somewhat relatable and significant to our lives even though we don’t fully identify ourselves with the word “designers”? It is creativity!
Creativity is the driving force of a designer—of you and me. Human beings are hardwired to be creative, but not all are aware of this. In Yes Please, Amy Poehler writes, “Creativity is connected to your passion, that light inside you that drives you… Your creativity is not a bad boyfriend. It is a really warm old Hispanic lady who has a beautiful laugh and loves to hug.” There’s a sense of “home” in creativity, like Poehler’s sweet, old Hispanic lady, and every time we design something we feel this sense of “home” in our souls—the cathartic moments that are mysterious, unfathomable, even words can’t fully describe it, but you know for certain you’ve felt it and it has happened. The process of designing, or the practice of creativity, is a birthplace of joy, love and courage, but it also can yield fear, disappointment and distress—depending on how you use freewill to design the inspiration and creativity into your life.
Unfortunately, some people I know today have forgotten this crucial truth—that we are all creative designers. Life and freewill are graceful gifts, we design our lives with freewill. When a person is not aware that they design their own lives, they become unconscious of their creative living, and eventually the designs of their lives become like an abandoned bedroom. “What is creative living?” Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic, “Any life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.” When we use freewill destructively, for instance being a perfectionist, creativity dies, it becomes almost nonexistent, and replaced by fear. We fear not to get the design that we have set in mind; we fear not to live the life that we want; we fear rejections and we fear endlessly. Let the Rolling Stone’s song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” be your anthem because when you let creativity and inspiration to take control, rather than your egoic mind and fear, you would be surprised when you look back and see that the design of your life looks better than what you have in mind. So, go onward, Designers! Make it work!
