Creativity is everywhere: Why do we want to kill it?

Creativity isn’t just for artists or musicians. It’s not limited to drawing, painting, or writing poetry. It’s literally in everything. Every invention, every business idea, every joke, every new way to solve a problem: those are all examples of creativity. It’s the reason we’ve come so far as humans. Without it we would not be able to innovate and build new things (so say goodbye to your iPhone) and overall not progress as much as a society. 

But somewhere along the way, we stopped valuing it. Or at least, we started prioritizing things that slowly suppress it such as standardized testing. Think about it, we spend years bubbling in answers, memorizing formulas, and writing essays with rigid formats. It teaches you how to follow rules, not how to think differently. And the worst part about all this? We start to associate “right answers” with being smart, and forget that asking questions is just as important.

And it’s not just tests. Dress codes that tell students to “fit in,” schools cutting arts programs to make more time for test prep, job descriptions that say “we want creative thinkers” but only reward people who stick to the system, all of these examples are sending the same message: don’t stand out.

But creativity is what helps us stand out. It’s how we express who we are, how we connect ideas, how we innovate. It’s everywhere in our world. In the way you solve a math problem, design your room, make a joke, or come up with a new way to study. It's about finding new ways to do things.

When we suppress creativity, we’re not just losing art; we are losing potential. We are telling people to color inside the lines when the real magic happens outside of the lines. Creativity is what makes life exciting, unique, and human. So maybe it’s time we stop trying to squeeze everyone into the same mold  and let creativity thrive in our world.