Dear Creativity,

Recently, I read an article written by a mother about her young adult son trying to launch into adulthood after college. He did everything right. Good grades. A computer science degree. A clear path laid out in front of him. And yet, here he is jobless, uncertain, and standing at the edge of a world he was never truly prepared for.

Not because he failed.
But because the system did.

He isn’t part of a “failed generation.” He’s a product of an education system that trained him for a world that no longer exists. Now, to move forward, he’s being asked to develop skills that were never centered growing up: adaptability, resilience, and the ability to navigate uncertainty without a map.

And I can’t help but notice the parallel.

As burned-out educators fight to change the very system they came from, it’s becoming clear that if our children need new skills, so do our adults. Yet as we age, we often cling to the past as if it holds the answers to our future.

But I know this, Creativity: without you, there is no future worth building.

Now more than ever, the world needs to collaborate with you to practice curiosity, to experiment, to learn how to adapt when the rules change mid-game. These are uncertain times. And still, partnering with you has taught me how to sit with that uncertainty, rather than flee from it. How to move forward without false certainty. How to build resilience not by hardening, but by staying open.

So I’m sitting with this question today…what new skills might we all need to practice if we’re willing to let go of the world we were prepared for and begin creating the one that’s actually here?

Innovatively yours,
Dr. Abigail