{"id":3311,"date":"2024-11-08T07:07:36","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T07:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/?p=3311"},"modified":"2025-01-25T08:53:39","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T08:53:39","slug":"why-create-not-consume","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/?p=3311","title":{"rendered":"Why Create\u2014not Consume?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The initial milestone could have been at the time I was 15, about 5 years ago from now. My father, who indeed might be the one that cares the most about me\u2014my vision, potential, goals, and success\u2014raged out because of my daily 8-hour phone usage on social media, mobile games, etc., and shouted these visionary words to me: “Instead of consuming so much and wasting hours and hours on these screens, CREATE SOMETHING. Be a Creator, not a Consumer!”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, as a rebellious teenager at 15, you never think about any sort of advice or learning that you should take from your parents’ sayings. Instead, you let it go in one ear and out the other, just like the majority of your parents’ opinions, and do things your own way as the most wise human being on planet Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it didn’t change anything back then. I kept wasting countless hours\u2014the most crucial and singular limited commodity\u2014on irrelevant videos and games, and those words from my father meant nothing to me at the time. (I even remember saying, \u201cDo you want me to become a YouTuber or what? Haha.\u201d<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as you grow up, you see the reality that your parents know much more than you thought\u2014in your teenage years\u2014they do, and accept your dumbness and perhaps even regret your behavior and decisions. I sure did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reason No. 1 that Convinced Me to Get Started<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

That phrase my father told me about five years ago comes up in all the productivity, self-growth, or business-related content I consume: in the books I read, the podcasts I listen to, the videos I watch, and even the courses I attend: \u201cCreate more than you consume.\u201d<\/em> Even the origin of productivity<\/em> means to produce,<\/em> from the Latin producere.<\/em> So, one has to produce\/ create something in order to be productive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an individual who values personal growth and productivity that much, this was indeed one of the two reasons why I started such personal projects like my insta page or my personal blog: To be productive, to improve my OWN skills, to share my OWN experiences and my OWN learnings with people who might possess the same thoughts or goals as me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong! It\u2019s not about being so f*cking good at something and giving people instructions about \u201cdo\u2019s\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019ts\u201d or guiding them. On the opposite, providing value with my\u2014again\u2014OWN knowledge about topics I am interested and experienced in, so people who also have interest for the same topic can take mine as reference and decide for themselves what to do. This is the first reason that got me into the concept of creating; to improve myself, develop my skills while being productive through providing value as much as my own experiences and knowledge allow me to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reason No. 2\u2014Leaving a Mark<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, besides improving yourself and potentialy helping, inspiring, motivating, entertaining others you also leave something tangible behind you. It doesn\u2019t have to be as sensational and impactful as  the<\/em> Mona Lisa, Symphony No. 9 or the Theory of Relativity <\/em>that shape the society\u2014<\/em>but actually something that you have created yourself and can review it after years and learn from, be proud of or even show to your children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But from a spiritual point of view: if you’ve watched the animation Inside Out<\/em>, you’ll know what I mean; I genuinely believe there\u2019s a similar memory mechanism, and most of our memories are forgotten due to a lack of recalling and reviewing them. As someone who deeply values experiences and memories\u2014especially with loved ones\u2014I want to archive every bit of data in my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, you document your journey mainly for yourself\u2014the journey you might consider as starting a business, your personal growth, process of hitting the gym consistently, graduating from university, raising your children as a father, completing a personal project, or the journey as a whole: your life, because it is human nature not to want to forget or be forgotten.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Major Concern: Self-Doubt<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There is one major concern that holds people back from making that first step: \u201cWho tf am I to do this?\u201d<\/em> I also was thinking the same way and was telling this to myself, until I have read this paragraph in the book “Building A Second Brain\u201d by Tiago Forte: \u201cI\u2019ve spoken with so many people about their stories, and I\u2019ve noticed time and again how many of them have beautiful, moving, powerful things to share. They have unique experiences that have revealed to them deep wisdom, yet they almost always undervalue those stories and experiences.\u201d<\/em> (p. 236) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not because I claim to have attained any \u201cdeep wisdom\u201d<\/em>, but because I genuinely believe that everyone has a unique story, a personal perspective, and something valuable to share with the world. We\u2019ll get into the detailed book review later, but this paragraph basically changed the way I view the idea of sharing one\u2019s ideas, experiences, perspective\u2014their story.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s a fact: even if you’re a 4\/10 at any topic in terms of skills, understanding, or capability, you can still provide value to those at 1\/10, 2\/10 or 3\/10, and contribute to their growth, while learning from those at 5\/10 and above. You can’t wait until you’re a 10\/10 to share your experiences\u2014waiting for perfection only delays progress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Issue: \u201cLiving someone else\u2019s Life\u201d<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There might be also a second concern: \u201cWhat will people say; what will parents and peers think?\u201d<\/em> I won\u2019t dive deep into clich\u00e9s like \u201ddon\u2019t give a flying f what others say\u201d<\/em> or \u201cyour opinion about you counts the most\u201d<\/em> at all. These statements are\u2014again\u2014too stereotypical that we always come across in toxic motivational reels and are pretty much bored of. They are in fact right, but not that convincing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a great speech of\u2014to me one of the most inspiring and visionary figures of history\u2014Steve Jobs about this topic that truly inspired me and got me into thinking; in fact so intense that I even made an inspirational reel of that speech. I highly recommend you to watch or at least listen to the full speech of Steve Jobs at Stanford in 2005. If you have a problem with your attention span, start watching at 12:30:00. <\/em>I won’t give any spoiler so you actually watch it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why I will\u2014Why you should too?<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

All in all, my two reasons for starting to create content were to improve my skills while sharing them<\/strong> and to document my journey along the way<\/strong>. After five years since that first spark, I also finally figured out the how<\/em>, just like the why<\/em>: with the most effortless yet effective methods possible, so that it becomes a habit and remains continuous\u2014through blogging and short-form video creation\u2014while overcoming the doubts in my mind that once held me back from pursuing my dreams. I encourage everyone to document their journey and share their story, regardless of how they choose to do it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can watch the whole speech of Steve Jobs here<\/a> and the reel here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The initial milestone could have been at the time I was 15, about 5 years ago from now. My father, who indeed might be the one that cares the most about me\u2014my vision, potential, goals, and success\u2014raged out because of my daily 8-hour phone usage on social media, mobile games, etc., and shouted these visionary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3311"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3519,"href":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311\/revisions\/3519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpermert.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}