Breakthrough ideas.

In Mitch Ditkoff’s “14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas,”  (http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/49.06.14Ways) he explains fourteen fairly easy ways to get ideas, who would have guessed? My three favorites of the fourteen, the ones I think are the “best suggestions”, were number four, make new connections, number five, fantasize, and number ten, hang out with diverse groups of people. I found make new connections really interesting and helpful just because I think too often we don’t consider the fact that putting to old ideas together can in fact make a new one. In this day in age when so many ideas have already been thought up it can be hard to create a truly new thought, but the truth is when you take from the old and make something new, that is a truly original thought, and I love that someone out there is enforcing that. Fantasize. I absolutely love that word. The word itself makes me imagine the impossible. Ditkoff had a really good point, too often we assume that the only people who fantasize are children and sickos, but I often find my best writing comes after I daydream about things that could never happen in real life, we all need to find that sense of wonder that as children brought us hours of enjoyment. Fantasize is a great suggestion. I love number ten. Hang out with a new group of people. We rarely by choice seek out the unfamiliar, but the truth is the more time we spend with people we don’t know and who aren’t like us the more life experiences we can have and the more information we generate to create even better creative ideas. I started high school in a new school district freshman year, and my new district was in one of the richest parts of Columbus, I was from…not the richest area. I was forced to hang out with new people I had nothing in common with. But these people opened up a whole new world filled with music I really enjoy, and even my style changed. These strange people changed my idea of me, and the truth is if I hadn’t been forced I never would have associated with those people. Now I try and hang out with all different kinds of people, so I’m constantly hearing new music, seeing new fashions, and listening to interesting, new to me, points of view.

Number one’s prompt is “What new idea is fascinating you? What new possibility has captured your attention? In what ways can you honor this inspiration today?” Lately I’ve been really into music and the idea of writing some songs and learning to play the guitar have been taking over my brain. The idea of creating something that other people might want to listen to is kind of intoxicating. I’ve been fighting the urge to ignore all of these feelings for the past two weeks and instead I’ve been hanging with my friends singing songs we already know and picking up some chords on the guitar. I haven’t written anything original as of yet but I’m planning to start soon.