What Goes Up, Does Not Have to Come Down!

How creative are you? What’s happened to your level of creativity AND your level of productivity as you’ve gotten older? Have those things increased or decreased? Most people would say, as you age, the creativity is often still there, but the level of productivity declines, it’s just part of getting aging.  

People are generally pretty creative, regardless of their age. Creativity doesn’t come only from those in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s, but a majority of it comes from the older crowd. If you’ve read any of the Stoics from the 14th and 15 centuries, you’d know that there aren’t many NEW ideas at all, just new applications of old ones.  And most of those Stoics, the Marcus Aurelius’ of the world for example, were pretty old when they did their best thinking and were the most creative. This includes the Michelangelo’s, Beethoven’s, and Picasso’s of the world. It’s also been shown that founders of STARTUP companies here in the U.S. are more likely to succeed if they’re 50 or over. That’s because the older people get, the more creative they become. Maya Angelou said, and I quote, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”  End quote. The ability to learn as you age doesn’t get worse…it continues all through life. Creativity should always be increasing within each one of us as we get older because creativity is a result of time and experience. And only aging can confer that. Creativity doesn’t belong only to the young. Older people have shown they can be immensely creative, and that creativity tends to increase in people as they age...