Find Your School Bus
No, my friends, I am not going off the proverbial deep end, nor am I suggesting you go back in time and relive those dreaded school years. I am using the school bus metaphor as a way to get you out of your own head and reenergize your brilliant self.
Look, we all have a job to do (see my blog post, dated 6/11/25), and regardless of how much we love what we do, we all hit a wall at some point, don’t we? We’ll grind away at a problem, yet the harder we push, the more elusive the solution becomes, until nothing seems to work.
For example, I enjoy writing, and most of the time, the words flow easily enough. There are days when it’s just not happening. I’ll start to write, get discouraged, and stop. Or, I’ll stare at a blank page, dismiss every idea I have, and not type a single letter. I haven’t yet tossed my laptop out the window, but I’ve thought of it a few times 😊. In years past, I would let this writer’s block get me down and I’d quit writing altogether for long stretches. Now, I take a different tack.
Enter the school bus.
After a recent tough stretch that found me questioning my abilities and direction, I closed my laptop and opened up some bins of Lego Bricks®. I had no set of bus plans to go by, only what I envisioned. As I built, my tension eased. It took time to find the right pieces, fit them together, then reassess and start over to make improvements. Adding the minifigure passengers was fun, and stoked my creativity, especially outfitting each one with unique hair pieces, hats, and other accessories. Before I knew it, I had a polished piece, ready to display.
Can you see the correlation? Creating encourages creating. While I built, my brain used my Lego creativity to find a story solution. The frame and tires for my bus represented the main plot. Each brick and plate I added to the structure equated to sentences and paragraphs. Adding the plastic passengers was like establishing characters and their associated details. Closing in the sides and roof completed the scene and moved me onto the next chapter. As I gave the rig its initial test drive, the final combination clicked into place, allowing me to open the safe in my mind, where I’d somehow locked away those missing words. Eager to get back on the magical trail of literary discovery, I reopened my laptop and got busy.
Think about your own life and how there are times when you’re stuck on a problem, or have doubts as to direction. Stop pacing the floor and get busy…with something else. Go for a walk in the woods, build a puzzle, put that new entertainment center together, play a video game, read a book, organize your garage, etc... These things will keep you busy and allow your brain time to recharge. Before you know it, you’ll have a solution, and it might be completely different than you thought, but that’s kind of the point, right? Trust me, it works!
Okay, now that I’ve solved all your problems, I need to get back to what I do best, and so do you. That’s right: being a good one, whatever you are 😉
-Dave
