My friend calls me the other night and tells me that she "has no inspiration" and that she was much more creative several years ago and I realize that I have been having this conversation a lot lately. It usually starts with how much better our ideas were in college and then we got real jobs or families or something and begin the finger pointing fest of everything that went wrong to get us to this uncreative place.

I think some of it's just routine. This sucks because routine means we can function efficiently and get more done but without spontaneous deviations things can get real boring so I started thinking about ways to make inspiration come a little easier.

1) Get Some More Interesting Friends: I love people in the restaurant and service industry. They are a great time and best of all, they don't talk to me about work. The point here is if you are a lawyer, make friends with a barista. If you are a store owner befriend a writer. Making friends in fields that you know nothing about makes for fun conversation.

2) Carry a Camera: It will force you to pay attention to smaller things for aesthetic value that you might not normally notice.

3) Listen: By listen, I mean eavesdrop because you can hear some great things..... part of this blog is based on the weird stuff I overhear. Just go to a coffee shop and do nothing except listen to things going on around you.

4) Say Yes When You Want To Say No: You know how it is, someone you barely know throws out a casual invite to something you are only sort of interested in. And there's maybe an Intervention marathon on. And I am really not good with awkward events but it's exactly those events that you almost didn't go to that end up resulting in new friends and new experiences.

5) Be Interesting: It's my theory that people who talk incessantly about being interesting aren't. If you want to spice things up then do it. Don't talk about taking a photography class, take it.

6) Ride your bike. I don't know why, it just helps the thought process.