006: Consumer vs Creator

 So today I want to,  talk about something or really address a struggle that I face on a daily basis. And I'm assuming that a lot of you out there,  face the same thing. It's what I'm gonna call being a consumer versus being a creator. I would like to think of myself as a creator because  I do enjoy engaging in activities that allow me to express my creativity and help others.

That could be creating photos with my camera, editing those photos, making videos, producing podcasts, assisting others in creating their own podcasts and on and on. I find  joy in utilizing my skills to make a positive impact. Additionally, I appreciate the process of learning new things that I can apply to my life and share with others.

However, I constantly find myself,  torn between creating things and consuming things. When I mention consumption, I'm referring to the act of mindlessly spending money or consuming content without any productive outcome. I'll give you an example. This morning I woke up a little late because I had a stomach flu that kind of kept me up throughout the night.

 But despite this,  the first thing I did,  after waking up was I started browsing social media on my phone for about 30 minutes just while laying in the bed. After that, I got up and made myself some coffee and a simple meal to try to help settle my stomach, and then I put on a podcast about artificial intelligence, which was about an hour, hour and a half and while listening to that podcast, I started mindlessly surfing the internet on my computer. My intention was after listening to the podcast was to go to the gym, but my stomach was still upset, so I just decided not to go. So what I ended up doing is just finishing the podcast and then I started surfing the internet, Instagram, and then watching videos on YouTube.

Before I knew it, it was already about one in the afternoon and I really had done nothing. So today I ended up being mostly just a consumer. A consumer is someone who I would say just  passively, uses their time and money on things created by others, just wasting it without any benefits. Um, How much of our day do we spend being consumed by distractions instead of doing what we should be doing. How much of our day do we spend being consumed by distractions instead of doing what we should be doing?

We all have obligations, but a lot of times we find ourself procrastinating by getting tied up in YouTube videos, TikTok, Social media, video games, on and on. Honestly, I feel, uh, a little bit of sense of guilt when I realize that I really haven't been productive all day, which is, hence this is the reason for this podcast.

So, once again,  ask yourself, when you're being a consumer, what do you get out of the deal? What do you gain from it? In reality, the only thing that you receive is wasted time or neglect of the things that you should be doing or spending unnecessary money. What have you created today? What have you done that contributes to your personal growth or the advancement of your goals?

Ask yourself that question every day. One of my favorite , quotes that I have,  actually framed, I framed it recently, but it says, how will the person. I want to be, do the things I'm about to do. How will the person that I want to be do the things that I'm about to do? So ask yourself that every day and ask yourself, when you're sitting, watching videos, wasting time, like, is this contributing to my overall goal or is this just wasting wasting time? So, But anyway. What I aspire to do is to live a life where I'm actively creating. I want to be intentional with my time, and I wanna make the most of every opportunity that's in front of me. So when I have spare time, I wanna spend it with friends or getting outside of these four walls and explore the world and doing things.

Screen time, whether it's just a TV, computer or phone, shouldn't consume all of our extra time. It does for a lot of people, but it shouldn't. Having 24 hour news on in the background, watching YouTube videos, doing all these things, even if you consider the YouTube video educational, it's great to watch a bunch of videos on, you know, taking photos with your camera or whatever it is you're trying to learn. You can watch enough videos, but at some point you gotta actually do something or create something. It's easy to get just caught up in just consuming and not creating. So please note that I'm not suggesting that you eliminate all downtime instead of, I'm just encouraging you to be intentional with your time and your life and how you spend your time and prioritize the things that matter over mindless activities.

So I'll just leave you with this. Set some goals.  Try to have a daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly goals, and this will help you stay focused. You know, if you wake up in the morning and you don't really have an idea of what you're gonna do today, you're just gonna sit around and waste time. If you wake up in the morning and you know, okay, today I wanna cut the yard. Today, I wanna record this podcast. Today I want to do this. You'll get those things done early and then you'll have time to just kind of like do the other things that are not as important. So have goals. And when I say goals, these goals should be small goals and larger goals. Manage your distractions, control the time that you spend on social media or other time wasting activities.

It's not about completely eliminating 'them, but just rather , being intentional. Like me, I'm sure you have friends that send you stuff. You know, you may have to even go as far as to mute those friends temporarily while you get your  activities done. Um, I have friends that send me videos and and stuff all day.

So during the time that I'm actually trying to focus, I will probably just mute my phone so that I'm not getting distracted, and then create a routine. I would just say create a daily routine that again, you have dedicated time for creation, which could be in the morning, maybe when your mind is fresh, and then, uh, dedicated time for other activities.

And then make sure you have tasks. When I talk about tasks, that could be your daily tasks, but those tasks should align with your overall bigger creative goals. And if you have smaller tasks that you can accomplish, you know, a lot of times that helps drive the bigger goals and give you confidence to tackle some of the bigger projects that you should be working on.

So once again, I just want to emphasize I'm not really suggesting that we can't be on social media or anything like that. I just want to encourage everyone out there to be intentional with your time. There's time that you should be creating and then there's time, which should be smaller for other distracting activities.  Just be intentional with your time and just don't go around this world aimlessly and not doing anything and letting other people suck your time and suck your energy. It's easy to just get distracted and just be stuck on social media watching the 24 hour news and,  doom scrolling through, you know, YouTube.

Focus on creating things that matter and then, uh, enjoy your life. So I hope this message inspires someone today, and I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to listen. If you have any comments or feedback, feel free to reach out me at [email protected] and I will talk to you next time.