The Willingness to Be Surprised

Can you be very cool and sophisticated and also highly creative at the same time? This is an interesting question, so let’s take a look at it today.

Do you know anyone who is too sophisticated, too cool to ever be surprised? If so, refrain from being too envious. The experience of surprise is also a sign of our readiness to grow. Amazement and wonder are clear signals that our self-concept and our concepts of the world and other people, are flexible and open to being reshaped. What’s more, it takes commitment and the ability to focus to allow us the experience of surprise.

Now, the so-called cool and sophisticated people have a hard time being surprised. They guard against anything that even suggests surprise, because they need to believe that they have everything figured out. But what they’ve really done is build a wall around their creative reservoir with this veneer of sophistication. It is people like these who are most unwilling to commit themselves to anything, least of all an ideal, and certainly not the development of their own creativity.

Creativity must be encouraged and nurtured if you want to grow as a person. You want to be willing to seek out and develop that which is new in yourself. At the same time, you are letting go of old habits, beliefs and expectations that are no longer useful – and could easily be holding you back from true success.

This creativity in action is you, uncovering more of the potential that lies asleep inside you. Do not be afraid to wake it up! There is so much more to each of us than we currently know. And in the long run, this is far more important than being “totally cool!”