It’s easy to come up with all the stuff you should be doing instead of writing. What’s the point? It’s not like you're writing the next Netflix series about sexy ghosts or time-traveling monkeys, shouldn’t you be vacuuming the driveway, learning to speak Portuguese, or organizing your pants in order of cuff width? Aren’t those things more important for reasons that are reasons based on reason?
The creative impulses in you, the ones waiting patiently for their moment in the sun, hear all. When other things are more worthy of your attention and their very existence is deemed inconvenient and without value, that message is received. This would be tolerable if we were talking about that friend from college staying too long on your couch, but it’s you. Your creativity is you. A colorful, innovative, boundless piece of you that is consistently and repeatedly told how unimportant, uninteresting and worthless it is. Crushing this impulse, explaining it away, and shushing its plaintive voice sucks up your energy and rewards you with no new recipes, zero paintings, and a significant lack of Ted Danson vehicles for Netflix, which is a loss for all of humankind.
Send yourself the message that you are at least as significant as your excuses by prioritizing time and energy for your creative work because it is important. You are important. Acknowledge yourself in your creativity, listen to what it says and write it all down. Ted Danson needs you.
