Escape to Freedom #4: Freedom to Create
“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labour in freedom.” – Albert Einstein
If there were nothing stopping you, what would you create?
Creativity expresses itself in thousands of ways and through billions of people. In fact, it’s fair to say that creativity is unique to each individual.
There is a deep human need to be creative.
Humans are born problem solvers. We are at the absolute peak of the animal kingdom in this regard – the apex predators of problem-solving.
We’re naturally gifted at creativity and we get profound satisfaction from doing it. It’s as if there is a powerful force of creativity inside each of us that is bursting to get out.
But how many of us are able to regularly exercise our creative abilities through our work? How many of us can honestly say we get to use our full creative potential while making a living?
Candidly stated another way, how many of us are stuck doing soul-crushing, dull, uninspiring, unoriginal, visionless, drone work for and with co-workers who are just as trapped as we are?
As a result, an important aspect of our humanity and happiness is stifled. In the worst case, it’s stifled for a lifetime.
A lifetime spent trying to make the best of it by forcing a laugh at a Dilbert cartoon that illustrates the futility and negativity of living like a nameless cog in a dying machine.
The corporate, cubicle, drone-work, world is filled with people who don’t really have twenty years of experience, they just lived the same year twenty times over.
To those of us who yearn to express our creativity, that’s just no way to live.
There Is Another Way
For millennia the quest for enough money to survive chained us all to occupations that paid the bills but weren’t really fulfilling.
Now – thanks to a multi-trillion dollar online economy – there’s never been a more powerful, flexible, and enabling tool for all of us regular people to achieve the lifestyle we want most while living wherever we want to live.
Look around on Escape Artist and what do you see? People who have combined their own online businesses with living where they want and having the creative freedom to do what they want.
That’s what Mikkel is doing right here and on the Expat MoneyShow, what Michael Cobb is doing with ECI Development, and what my wife and I do at SafelyLeaveTheRatRace.
When you start with a clean sheet of paper you can design your life to be what you want most and do best.
I can tell you with certainty that every major online business model offers two great things:
- the ability to engage in creative problem solving that is personally rewarding, creatively satisfying, and financially lucrative
- the opportunity to use your personal lifetime of skills, experience, talent, and core competencies in ways you want to use them which lets you feel personally empowered and validated
Making a plan for what online business to build involves searching your mind and your heart for what you desire most in life. It involves immersing yourself in all the possibilities and then distilling them into a carefully crafted scenario that makes you excited to even contemplate. If you think you need help with that, I’ll personally help you.
And here’s the best part: the creativity never really stops. Products to create, services to develop, new markets to serve, innovative tactics to implement – all without the meddlesome interference of people who want to control everything you do, often while blaming you for their mistakes and taking credit for your successes.
Speaking as a middle-aged person, I can tell you that being immersed in creative problem-solving and innovation is the invigorating brainwork that keeps a person feeling young.
This is also exactly why Connie and I never live the same year twice; because we just don’t have to. And it feels liberating to plan each fresh new year without being trapped in a conventional job.
Freedom to create is a basic human need and it is emotionally destructive to live and work in an environment where it cannot see its full expression. I also know that first hand. I’ve served my time in a corporate, cubicle environment and I know I could never return to it.
The first step – investigating your options – is a great way to get a taste of what’s available in terms of what fits your priorities and goals and to get your mind thinking creatively about the lifestyle you can build for yourself.
Here’s a podcast from The Expat Money Show where Mikkel and I talk about safely leaving the rat race by starting an online business!
The Takeaway
Humans are hard-wired to express their creativity and problem-solving impulses. Most repressive, drone-work jobs provide almost zero exposure to this proven pathway to happiness and personal satisfaction. Building and operating your own online business provides continual stimulation for your impulse to be creative and the freedom to live wherever you want.
Ready to Create Something of Your Own?
Are you ready to live life on your own terms – create your own online income? Reach out to us at Safely Leave The Rat Race. We are committed to helping you get from whatever point you are right now – to the point of earning a regular, predictable online income while living wherever you want.
I hope you enjoyed Escape to Freedom #4: Freedom to Create. In case you missed them, here are
#2 – Three Levels of Expat Online Income and
#1 – What is Your Freedom Lifestyle?
