How Creativity Influences Us

Creativity is an integral part of who we are as humans. As children we use our creativity to help us make sense of the world around us, and how to come up with ways to solve everyday problems.As we get older we continue to us our creativity to deal with everyday issues and how to be successful in our academics. However we also learn to use it for expressing ourselves through art and music, or creating some invention that will make everyday easier. It is this ability to be creative that has lead to some of the greatest discovers and masterpieces trough out our history. But it is also this ability to apply our creativity everyday that has helped us evolve and adapt to any situation we may face.

  As a child growing up in Indiana I had the opportunity to learn survival skills through my participation in the Boy Scouts of America. Looking back at the experiences I had with them I never realized how important they would be to me today. As a Boy Scout I learned how to be creative and innovative everyday. Whether I was figuring out how to build a shelter from the materials around me, or starting a fire without a match or lighter I learned that by using my creativity I could overcome any obstacle. But what is most important is it taught me that I could apply this same approach to overcome any difficulties I may face in life. For instance I could use my creativity to develop an easier way to change my tire, or how to fix my bike when I was out riding on the trails at my local park. 

  Jumping ahead almost 20 years I learned just how important it was to use my creative ability everyday to overcome the toughest challenge I had ever faced. It was 2016 and I was deployed onboard the USS Eisenhower. We had just left Naples, Italy when I noticed a tremor in my left hand while working on some wiring. While I paid little attention to it at first I would later seek out medical attention because it had not gone away. After months of testing, being sent home, and even more testing I was officially diagnosed with Early Onset of Parkinson’s. This diagnosis turned my life upside down and left me searching for answers. 

Once the diagnosis had set in I realized that this would not define me or limit what I could do. Instead I leaned on what I learned as a child and began to come up with new and creative ideas for how I could still be successful in the job I loved. For example I used my creativity to develop a way for me to repair wires by using a vice to hold the wires together so the tremor in my hand did not cause a problem.  Another example of how I used my creative ability is developing a way to solder that would not require me to use my left hand which again eliminated issues caused by my tremor. While these are just a few examples of what I have used my everyday creativity for I know that I have a long road ahead of me full of opportunities to be creative and innovative. Whether it is learning to deal with rigid muscles, changes in my hand writing, or the loose of my ability to smell I know that I can adapt and overcome these things with my creativity.