Balancing the Creative with the Analytical

Reflections on Interview with Chelsea Williams

“I’ve noticed I feel most balanced when I can be analytical and creative in the same week. When I’ve been too focused on work and haven’t had a creative outlet, I’ll have this pent up creative energy.” – Chelsea Williams

Like Chelsea, I’ve always had analytical and creative bents. Math and English were my favorite subjects. Now I write and practice law. But I’ve struggled to reconcile these two sides of myself. For a long time, they were engaged in a downright power struggle.

The voice in my head when I was younger had a clear sense of which side was superior (driven in part by societal messaging, as well as by the job market): Analytical trumped creative. Numbers trumped books. I grew up with a deep-seeded belief that my creative side was feminine—sensitive—and feminine and sensitive were harder to market. Math took serious concentration; books were something you did with your free time. Math had clear answers; books raised questions. The heavy focus we have now on prioritizing STEM education perpetuates this idea. As the messaging goes, we need more students—particularly female students—in technological and scientific fields: an idea as true as it is limiting. 

But math has never given me the solace that books have in my hardest moments. And how I responded to the world in these moments has shaped me into who I am. In that sense, math was much more of a hobby. Books raised me.

Math ultimately turned into law for me, making good use of the analytical part of my brain. I often say I went into law to support my creative ambitions, which is true. But I also went into law to have a “serious” career. When I went to law school, I deliberately assigned my creativity to the back seat. (A baby wasn’t anywhere near the back seat at that time. I strongly related to Chelsea when she said, “I was highly susceptible to the female empowerment movement of the 90s, and I think my attitude towards motherhood was an unintended negative consequence of that messaging.”)

Now, fourteen years out of law school, I found myself writing this description is my website bio: “Being a lawyer makes me a clearer writer, being a writer makes me a happier lawyer, and being a mother makes me a more grounded one of each.” That sentence typed itself without a lot of forethought, and when I reread it, it rang true. My analytical and creative sides are approaching the balance Chelsea described. Slowly, I’ve coaxed creativity to join me in the front seat.

Still, as I read my bio again now, I notice I said I was a lawyer first and a mother last and with emphasis. My creative self got squashed in the middle, which is about how life feels at the moment. But at least now I’m taking notice. Maybe someday, I’ll allow creativity to take a turn at the wheel.