Throughout the semester, I have tried my best to come up with creative solutions to problems, as well as to come up with creative problems. What has aided me the most throughout this has been having some sense of what I need to come up with. These blogs have all had some sort of direction to them, whether it was talking about a mundane activity, or talking about something I did in the past that was creative. Without some sort of direction, I doubt that I ever would have said anything worth reading.
My creativity has been most hindered by my frustration with when I feel less creative. It would devolve into a cycle of telling myself that I am not creative enough to come up with a solution to a problem, and then this would of course lead me to not being able to solve the problem. I managed to work through this by not thinking about how creative I am as a person, but instead thinking about what I can do with this task in front of me.
I most certainly want to be creative in my future. I hope to be a successful mathematician someday, and creativity is a critical part of being successful at that. The most helpful thing I learned throughout the semester was that the people who had the best ideas had a bunch of bad ones before the good ones. I certainly have lots of bad ideas. This gives me hope that if I just make enough of them, I can find a good one.
I know I harp on this quite a bit, but this paper helped me realize that I need to be more creative to be successful in what I plan to do in the future. This has influenced me more than any other paper I have ever read.