Creativity vs. regret

If I can be simplistic for a moment, there are two human brains packed into each of our heads: one that is extroverted, exploratory, and uncritical, and another that is introverted, analytic, and very critical indeed.  The balance between those two brains is what let us first learn to build a fire, and next gain the caution to keep it from burning us out of the cave.  We absolutely need both of our brains.

I've pointed out before that when you are being creative, your creative mind has to be free to explore without too much critical input.  You must turn down the volume on the introverted, critical brain.  But we're not talking about 100% turning off your inner critic.  Your past learning, ability to analyze, and even negative internal feedback like fear of failure may sometimes be useful in pushing your creative project forward in useful directions.  It's just that the primary impulse must come from your extroverted, exploratory brain.

However, one critical impluse you must downplay is regret.  Regret is a vast, internal judgment that some activity or exploration was a waste of time, or some opportunity was passed over when it would have been useful. Regret saps the life out of creativity because it tells you things are somehow over, gone, wasted.  As long as you draw breath, that is not true.  Even failure is experience of our astonishing world. 

Besides, there's no future in wishing the past had been different.  In fact, creativity can help you overcome the corrosive emotion of regret.  Look underneath any regret that pops up and use what you find there to identify a creative challenge.  If you wish something were different, start from there, and don't let the emotion of regret tell you there's no point.  The point is for you to have an amazing life.  So keep creating!