Necessity: The Mother of Invention AND Introspection

They say necessity is the mother of invention. It’s true. Sometimes a situation sucks. But in the midst of the struggle, we’re forced to look at things differently. We have to break away from old ways of thinking that we’ve gotten used to, and we suddenly consider solutions and ideas that either never occurred to us, or we never gave much consideration.

This happened to me recently.

Lately, I’ve been doing more to prioritize another writing project. So, I’ve found it more and more difficult to balance my time. It occurred to me that I simply can’t afford to be going to work with just four hours of sleep almost every day. Something’s got to give.

The Invention and the Introspection

Remember me saying necessity is the mother of invention? Well, let’s put that thought on the shelf and add this one right beside it.

Necessity is also the mother of introspection.

First, invention.

Through the unideal situation of simply not having enough time to write full length, thought-out, and researched blog posts on a regular basis (necessity), I was forced to come up with an alternative (invention).

The idea?

A series of short blog posts of random thoughts and advice that I can write when time is short. If you don’t have time to read full-length blog posts all the time, then you’re in luck because these will be quick doses of inspiration and reflection to add to your day.

Necessity can also call for some introspection.

Through necessity, I’m forced to reflect. I realize I had been stuck with this idea that a post with just a single thought would be too short, not developed enough, and just too micro to be considered a real blog post. I had a skewed concept of what a post is supposed to be. But in reality, there’s no single definition or defined length.

I had made arbitrary conditions for myself without realizing it.

Takeaway

Next time you find yourself in an unideal situation, perhaps it might be an opportunity to finally break away from an iron-clad way of thinking. You may come up with solutions you didn’t think of or seriously considered.

You’re finally forced to think outside the box.

But don’t stop at necessity leading to invention.

Next, take things a step further with introspection. You’ll want to ask yourself why the ideas you finally came up with or considered were previously blocked. Why it took necessity to bring them out. This exercise in introspection might reveal fixed notions you have that narrow your vision and limit the range of possibilities at your disposal.

Remember, the more necessity leads to both invention AND introspection, the more you’ll break down the mental barriers you have, which can only lead to even better innovation and ideas in the future, when necessity comes around again.

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