Marissa asked Kim Piper Werker:

It seems like a lot of people struggle with feeling "abnormal" and thinking too much outside of the box. I feel like I have the opposite issue...too "normal" to be creative, too good at just following rules and instructions and not thinking outside of the box enough. Have you encountered this much?

Kim Piper Werker To be honest, Marissa, that's how I felt for most of my life. But it bugged me, you know? Does it bug you? I felt like I *wanted* to be creative and different and boundary-pushing, but I wasn't comfortable doing that and I didn't even think I *could*. What I ended up realizing, which I wrote a bunch about in Make It Mighty Ugly, is that all I had to do was, well, whatever I actually wanted, without worrying much about what's normal or abnormal or creative or exciting. And then I had to take the next step of accepting that certain things I did regularly actually are creative, even if they didn't involve things I thought of as traditionally creative. Like, I wasn't an artist or a poet or a musician. But I was a heckuva problem solver and a pretty good writer. Those things are creative, even if they aren't romantic.

Eventually, I just started making stuff (sometimes ugly on purpose). I still don't make things that are particularly ground-breaking, but I know I could if I wanted to. And I still love to follow other people's instructions and patterns, but I also know I can come up with my own if I want to.

Which is all to say, do you enjoy following the rules? If you do, then why change? But I can tell you this with absolute certainty: If you're bugged by feeling "too normal to be creative", then you're not very normal. Because "normal" people aren't bugged by being normal. So if you're bugged, know that you're still not alone.

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