For those that grew up in the US, we learn very early on that the value of our life comes from a specific a very specific kind of metric: most or -est. Most likely to succeed. Highest GPA in our class. Most points scored in a game.

As a textbook overachiever, I fell prey to this thinking early and hard. I bragged about my ACT score long after it became embarrassing. I proudly reminded myself of all the patches on my letterman jacket when I wasn’t invited to a party. These simple quantitative concepts provided cold, shallow comfort, but they were the comfort I was taught to seek.

Brutish, shallow competition was exploited in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, when “side hustle” became part of the lexicon and working multiple jobs to stay afloat became the norm. And as anxiety and depression rose up in us, to combat the feeling of helplessness we had, we turned to what we knew: most and -est.

Bubbling up in our culture since the industrial revolution, suddenly we took the great desire for productivity off of the factory floor and into our everyday lives. It was no longer enough to manufacture the most watches or head gaskets, now we began applying that assembly-line thinking to our day to day life.

Productivity sells us a seductively simple solution. The answer to all our woes, financial, emotional, personal, and spiritual, can be solved through the sheer force of productivity. “I can’t possibly be depressed/unfulfilled/drowning,” we tell ourselves. “I’m productive.” But there’s a big problem with this line of reasoning.

You will never be enough for productivity. It is a snooty and tempestuous metric. Once you’ve washed 100 dishes in a day, your paltry 85 will never seem good enough. And once you wash 120, that 100 seems amateurish and pathetic. There is always another email, always another pile of laundry lurking in a corner, always another meeting, errand to run, hot new social media tip to try.

The only antidote I have found to this hamster wheel is creativity.

When I say creativity, I do not mean corporate-speak creativity: Steve Jobs-level innovation that can be sucked out of a talented, yet meek, employee. Nor do I mean the “woo-woo” creativity, that seemingly fickle, intangible force that only bestows itself on those it deems “geniuses.”

I mean an everyday, inherent hunger for creation lurking inside us. The desire to cook a good meal at the end of the day. To nurture our peonies and pansies up from plain earth. To rearrange our furniture and write our partner a silly love poem and sing our baby a soothing song.

On a music stand in my office/library/recording space/overflow closet, I have my favorite quote, by Julia Cameron, printed out.

“I’ll take care of the quantity, you take care of the quality.”

As a recovering perfectionist and productivity addict, these words remind me to take the pressure off of myself and what I am able to do that day, and instead trust the hands of a greater, more powerful force. The journey to this trust is perhaps the scariest thing I have ever done (and continue to do).

If I had read that quote in college, it would’ve made me sick with dread. I would’ve misunderstood it as the hamster wheel. The incessant drive towards productivity. The evaluation of my life (and worth) as a quantitative metric. 

But now that I’m older (and have read Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way multiple times) this quote gives me hope. Unlike the rigidity of productivity, creation is effusive and wild and meandering. You can assign a number in relation to creativity (number of words in a book, for instance). The key difference is that productivity relies on the number, while creativity relies on the attempt. All creativity ever asks of us is that we do our best, whatever that is.

It is true that sometimes the laundry must be done. The cat must be fed. The emails must be answered. But why on earth would we want to tie our precious esteem to such mundanity? When we close our eyes for the last time, will all the oil changes and KPI reports flash before them? Likely no.

Productivity will always demand more. By living our lives according to a selfish, insecure metric, we doom ourselves to fail before we’ve even begun. By writing that paper for productivity’s sake rather than learning’s, we don’t actually learn how to do anything but be productive.

So set the computer down. The laundry, the phone, the car keys, the planner. Take a look around. And ask yourself, “what can I create today?”