| 007 | An Invitation to Begin

Lately I've been thinking about consumption.

It dawned on me that I've been consuming exponentially more than I've been creating. It's so easy to disappear down a Pinterest rabbit hole, scroll through aspirational videos on Instagram, or get pulled into a video on YouTube. There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. In fact most of the time I’m using Pinterest to help me find ideas for my home, Instagram for inspiration for my life and YouTube for endless education. They inspire me, teach me, and expose me to ideas I never would have discovered otherwise.

But somewhere along the way, I realized I had become wildly out of balance.

The amount I was consuming far exceeded the amount I was creating.

Ironically, the only class I ever failed in high school was photography. Not because my work wasn't good enough, but because I became so fixated on perfecting every image that I quickly fell behind. I spent so much time editing a handful of photographs that I never finished the assignments themselves. It's taken me years to recognize that photography wasn't an isolated incident. It was a pattern.

I've abandoned countless projects because I became so consumed with making them perfect that I eventually burned myself out before they were ever finished.

This blog is perhaps the clearest example. I started it around this time last year, but after only four posts I became overwhelmed. I wanted every article to be perfectly curated. Every image had to be edited just right. Every sentence needed to be polished. Every post had to justify the time I'd invested in it. What was supposed to be a creative outlet, a place to teach, document, reflect, and archive my thoughts gradually became another obligation. Eventually, I stopped creating altogether.

Recently, though, I've become much more aware of this tendency, and a few simple ideas have helped shift my perspective. One quote I came across has stayed with me:

"Don't wait to be whole. Go limping. Go with questions. Go while the pieces are still coming together. Just go."

Another has become a daily reminder:

"Just make it exist first. You can make it good later."

Those two ideas have challenged me more than I expected.

Things don't have to be perfect before they're shared. I don't need to anticipate every possible outcome or polish every tiny detail before beginning. I don't need to spend an hour editing a single photograph. Sometimes I don't need to edit it at all. Perhaps authenticity creates something perfection never can.

A good friend has reinforced this mindset over the past few months. She's encouraged me to experiment and reminded me that because this isn't my livelihood, I have the luxury of creating simply because I enjoy it. I can try new things. I can change directions. I can discover what feels true without worrying whether it's optimized or even particularly successful.

The more I've thought about these ideas, the more I've realized they extend far beyond writing. As we've renovated our home, I've collected hundreds, if not thousands, of inspiring images. I've fallen in love with whimsical details, bold colors, unusual combinations, and beautifully imperfect spaces. Yet whenever it came time to make decisions in our own home, I hesitated. What if I grew tired of it? What if I regretted the choice? What if my style changed? So our main living spaces remained relatively safe.

But then there's my attic.

It's a room we've barely touched. The drywall still needs to be replaced. The floors still need refinishing. Yet somehow, it's become my favorite space in the house. I've started calling it my treehouse. It's my office, my music room, my art studio, and increasingly, my laboratory for ideas. It's the one room where I feel completely free to experiment. I can paint stars on the door. I can leave colorful splatters on the floor when I paint. I can try something ridiculous simply because I'm curious to see what happens. And maybe that's what I've been missing all along. Maybe creativity isn't born from having perfect ideas. Maybe it comes from giving ourselves permission to explore before we know exactly where we're going.

For me, I think the key to creating more is accepting that perfection is secondary.

A blank canvas isn't something to preserve. It's an invitation to begin.

Sincerely,

The Grower