Creativity

Creativity: A Crucial Factor to Success

Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others and entertaining others not leaving out ourselves.

Creativity is simply coming up with ideas that are new and appropriate. It is rooted in innovation, invention, and originality. Novelty with value truly defines creativity. Coming up with new ideas is the beginning of creativity but it becomes perfect when the new ideas are turned into reality.

More so, creativity promotes success. This life is pleasant as a result of creativity. The successful professionals are the ones with the creative minds. The great scientist, inventors, musicians, politicians, artists, managers and so on are the creative people.

Creativity is an approach to problem solving. I once read a story of a man that can be compared with the character, Shylock in Shakespeare’s ‘Merchant of Venice.’ This man lends a poor man an amount with a condition he knew the poor man cannot meet up with. The penalty is that the lender will take as wife the only daughter of the borrower in case of a default in payment.

Apparently, the poor man defaulted and he appealed to pity. The shrewd lender pretended to be compassionate while he handed the poor man and his daughter over to chance. He took them to a land full of pebbles and said, ‘I will put a black and a white pebble in a sac. If your daughter chooses the white pebble, your debt is forgiven but if she chooses the black one, then she becomes my wife.’

The egregious lender deliberately picked two black pebbles, not knowing that the borrower’s daughter saw him. At first, the daughter felt there was no hope. Chance will not work because both pebbles are black. While the lender was happy that he will surely take home his young bride.

Moreover, every man has a creative tendency, the borrower’s daughter became fearless and picked a pebble from the sack, quickly dropped it on the ground that is full of both black and white pebbles and apologized for being unnecessarily jittery due to anxiety. Then she says the pebble left in the sack should determine the pebble she picked. Obviously, we know the lender had put two black pebbles in the sac. The lender was sad, while the borrower, not knowing what had happened grabbed the sack to see the pebble therein. When he saw that it was the black pebble, he jumped up and screamed, ‘my daughter picked a white pebble!’ This was how their debt was forgiven.

The story above says no problem is insurmountable to a creative mind. It is true that thinkers are reformers. Creativity is indeed a crucial factor to success.