There’s so much information in the world today that letting people recreate their own databases is a luxury we can’t afford. If we were all allowed to create our own basic concepts without any standardization, we couldn’t effectively interact with each other. Imagine trying to communicate if each person spoke a unique language, or how hard it would be to pay a bill if every individual used a different numbering system.

Often, our education keeps us from conceiving truly creative solutions. It’s important to realize that education doesn’t make an individual creative. In fact, it often has the opposite effect because there’s less need to use creativity on a continuous basis. Someone else is always supplying the answers. Of course, having an education doesn’t prohibit an individual from being creative, either. Highly creative, educated individuals don’t rely on their education to solve their problems. They use it to develop improved solutions.

We begin reducing a child’s natural creative urges early in life by saying, “Don’t try to be creative. We already have an answer that’s better than anything you can create.” Here is an example:

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