Verb: Existence. Action. Occurrence. Happening.

Here's a thought.

I've so far been able to keep my resolutions for 2010 even though the year's been trying its best to do just that - best me.  Not happening.  I've been a busy girl, blogging, exercising, designing, creating, making, complimenting, reading, learning, writing, loving, and generally living.  It's been a good first month and a quarter, though there have been some challenges.

I'm not complaining.  I busy working on those ideas I'm always talking about.

As my favorite new author says, Life is a Verb.

I get it, Patti.  I do. 

Tim Brown on creativity and play | Video on TED.com

Playfulness, creativity, and imagination. Remember when it was just as much fun to play with the box as with the toy? Tim Brown in a wonderful Ted Talk you've got to see if you need to reclaim your creative freedom.

Tim Brown on creativity and play Video on TED.com

Starbucks, Amanda, and her Tea Leaves Idea

Routine has got to be one of the biggest killers of creativity. Agreed? 

As I sat at my local Starbucks at lunch today, a now routine go-to spot for my daily cubicle break, I ordered not my usual drink, but a cup of tea.  Tazo tea.  And that's normally not remarkable except that I noticed they'd gotten in a new style of tea bag. (well, new for Starbucks anyway).  It's a sachet filled with whole tea leaves. 

A barista I hadn't seen before today watched me remove the sachet then examine the soggy bag with a quizzical expression.

"Isn't it nice?"

Her question took me by surprise.  I hadn't thought about a used teabag's better qualities, but there it was, sitting there on top of my lid, just looking kind of, well...  nice, like a tiny silk pillow of colorful potpourri.  It smelled really great, too.

"They use whole tea leaves now.  I use it for an air freshener in my car."  

Then she told me she'd even written to the powers at Starbucks (my terminology, not hers) and handed them her idea - air fresheners that smell like tea.  I thought it was genius.  No harsh chemical smells, no scent-alikes that have absolutely no business trying to mimic nature.  Just tea.

"Do you mind if I write about this?," I asked.  "I have a blog about creativity and want to include your idea."

So here it is, Amanda DeRienzo's little idea, which is actually rather Big.  It's green (recycled tea bags, natural scents).  It enhances the brand because it serves as a reminder of where the customer has purchased the item, and after use to make a lovely cup of tea, is absolutely free to freshen my cubicle all afternoon.

You go, Amanda.  Starbucks, are you listening?

Pants on the Ground - Larry Platt's Little Idea Rocks a Trend

If you've ever needed a reminder that the best ideas may be the simplest and come from unexpected places, ask "General" Larry Platt who could never have anticipated the groundswell under his Pants On The Ground. 

The success of his performance seems somewhat assisted by Simon Cowell's pronouncement of the song as a probable hit, but Mr. Platt's idea is brilliant in that he's tapped into a common American sentiment. 

Someone just had to lead the backlash against those ridiculous low-slung britches. 


The story behind those pants.


Mr. Platt's audition:



Pants on the ground original lyrics by "General" Larry Platt

Pants on the ground
Pants on the ground
Lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground

With the gold in your mouth
Hat turned sideways
Pants hit the ground

Call yourself a cool cat
Lookin' like a fool
Walkin' downtown with your pants on the ground

Get it up, hey!
Get your pants off the ground
Lookin' like a fool
Walkin' talkin' with your pants on the ground.

Get it up, hey!
Get your pants off the ground
Lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground

A mllion brilliant little ones

If and when I ever grow up, I want to be like my friend Jayne.

This is something I've been promising myself for a long time, and really do think I'm making progress, but still, she continues to surprise me by seeming to raise the bar when all she's really doing is being consistently Jayne, which when all is said and done, is all she ever needs to be.

What's brought this post on is that today I checked the mail.

Back in October Jayne had paid me a weekend visit.  I took her around to all of the local places I haunt including Bookwise, one of my favorite places on earth and to most, that's a well-kept secret.  And what do you suppose was in a birthday card I got from her today but a gift certificate I didn't even know was offered.

Looking at the gift, I remembered the time I'd stayed with Jayne for a while.  She'd just moved into a new apartment and when it came time to create her alarm code, she thought to use my birthdate so that I'd be able to remember how to disarm it.

That's Jayne's secret.  Anticipation, planning, thoughtfulness, and follow-through.  She's full of the little bright ideas like these and they all roll up into the kind of person who's easy to be around, who leaves a trail of goodwill in the wake of her personal and professional successes .  As, on December 20,  I still struggle with coming up with a Big Idea for my husband's Christmas gift this year, Jayne doesn't wait for the single big idea to come to her.  She's got a million brilliant little ones.

Note to myself:  Stop waiting for the Big One.

Two-Oh-One-Oh

Good Lord, it's December already and it looks as though this blog thing has been.. shall we say, sporadic?

Giving good thought to what this blog is supposed to be all about - Ideas (forget Big Ideas because those are hard to come up with, consume way too much time, and require the kind of fortitude and undivided attention I'd rather divide.), I've decided that this shall be about Littler Ideas. Manageable Ideas. Nonthreatening Ideas. Brilliant Ideas. After all, this, I claim, is the space in which they can be nurtured and grown. Besides, it's all most of us with bright dreams and full time jobs have the time or energy for.

With that being typed, I can tell you that I've also been giving lots of thought to ways in which I can bring lots of terrific Little Ideas to my personal life in order to grow a bigger and better 2010.

Whew. 2010. I think that may be the first time I've written that. (By the way, how will you pronounce that? Are you a modernist going with Twenty-ten or traditionalist sticking with Two thousand ten?)

Back to growing Little Ideas. See, I'm feeling the whole hope of a new year thing and have been inspired by various Happiness websites like, well... The Happiness Project for instance. But I'm not going to follow the project online because that probably involves more commitment than I've time for. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make one tiny resolution per day in 2010, and they're going to be the kind I can complete in a single day and therefore easily keep. They're also not going to be the kind that'll set me up with a dreaded daily task in order to fulfill empty self-improvement goals. They're just going to be the kind that'll force me outside myself and get me to to live mindfully and purposefully, if even for one resolution.

The tiny, manageable, less than earth-moving resolutions are going to look like this:

Day 1: Make (from scratch) a thank you card.

Day 2: Spend time with my spouse watching one entire televised sporting event from beginning to end.

Day 3: Do 1 nice thing for someone I really can't stand.

Etc.

The challenge is to come up with 365 new little things to do in 2010. And, then, of course, write a weekly wrapup of them Right Here. See? There's the goal right there, the place where this Little Idea rolls right up into its bigger one, to regularly write throughout the coming year.

Easy, right? That's it. That's the 2010 Biggest Little Idea I could come up with.