While conflating art and creativity is harmful, refusing to allow our innate sense of creativity to find its home beyond a canvas, word processor, or instrument is where the real danger is found. In thinking that creativity is best reserved for film-makers, designers, painters, or writers we sever ourselves from all the good that comes from accepting that we are all (to some degree) creative.
Thankfully, art is not the resting place for our innate sense creativity. In fact, there is no resting place. There are infinite ways for us to use our unique mix of taste, capacity, and skills to channel our creativity. For some the way to channel creativity is through intricate landscaping, for others it may be coding mobile apps, maybe for another group its conceptualizing the most lavish wine pairings. When we keep these examples in mind, we realize that the focus of our creative effort need not be artistry.
When we accept our innate creativity and deny that art is the only, or the best way to channel it we’re freed up to make something truly special.
Ultimately the Pace Formula (and slowing down in general) is not concerned with a privileged, mystic approach to a “well balanced life.” What we truly find when we change our pace and do less things over a longer period of time is that our dreams, our hopes, our projects are actually achievable. We learn that our passions don’t have to require an untenable amount of privilege to be pursed. When we creatively change our approach to how we get things done we enable ourselves to craft a solution informed by our specific context, and become well on our way to sustainably pursuing what we value most.