There is a light bulb on in an empty room.
It shines brilliantly.
Illuminating nothing.
Photons dance and jump off the walls.
The room heats up,
Energy expended without purpose.
Then it burns out.
Its potential forever lost.

Cost of Lost Creation

Last week, I solved a persistent problem that had plagued my team for months. The solution was elegant—simple, efficient, and robust.

I never shared it. It sits in a forgotten document on my hard drive.

This happens millions of times a day across the world. People create things that never see the light of day:

A home cook perfects a recipe modification but never tells anyone about it
A teacher develops an innovative approach to explaining a difficult concept but keeps it confined to her classroom
A programmer writes elegant code that solves a common problem but never pushes it to GitHub
A researcher discovers a new perspective on old data but doesn't publish the insight
A designer creates beautiful visuals that remain forever in a private folder
A parent finds a clever way to help children learn responsibility but doesn't share it with other struggling parents

Each instance is a light bulb shining in an empty room. The energy—our time, our creativity, our problem-solving—is spent, but nothing is illuminated beyond our own brief moment of creation.

The tragedy is magnified in our digital age, where sharing has never been easier, yet so much value remains locked away. Tools like AI make us even more productive creators, but often don't change our sharing habits.

Digital Hoarding: The Modern Wasteland

We've become digital hoarders. Our hard drives, notes apps, and cloud storage are filled with:

Half-finished projects and ideas
Perfect solutions to problems others are struggling with right now
Insights that could save others hours or days of work
Creative works that could inspire or move others
Processes that could make organizations more efficient
Knowledge that would benefit communities

Yet these creations remain trapped, like light in a closet.

Think about your own digital and mental spaces. How many creations do you have that others might benefit from? The method you developed for tracking expenses, the framework you created for making decisions, the shortcut you discovered in Excel—what happens to them after their immediate use?

This problem exists across all domains of human creativity, from your kitchen to corporate boardrooms, from solo creators to large teams. AI tools may amplify our creative capabilities, but they don't automatically solve our sharing problem.

The Multiplication Effect of Shared Creation

When we create AND share the results, something magical happens:

Value multiplies: A helpful technique shared online might help hundreds of people
Ideas evolve: Others improve on our work, taking it in directions we never imagined
Learning compounds: Shared mistakes become communal wisdom
Resources are conserved: Others don't waste time solving problems that already have solutions

Consider a simple example: You develop a better way to run remote meetings that keeps everyone engaged. If you share it with your organization of 100 people, and it saves each person just 5 minutes per meeting with 2 meetings per week, that's 1,000 minutes (over 16 hours) of collective time saved every week from your one improvement.

Keep it to yourself, and that potential value evaporates like heat from a solitary light bulb.

Real-World Examples of Light Trapped in Closets

The Undocumented Workshop Technique

A woodworker discovered a simple technique for preventing a common issue when joining two specific types of wood. For years, he used it in his own shop but never mentioned it in the online forums he frequented. When he finally shared it in a casual comment, dozens of woodworkers expressed frustration that such a simple solution existed all along while they struggled unnecessarily.

The Management Insight

A middle manager developed an effective approach for handling team conflicts that consistently led to better outcomes and stronger relationships. She used it successfully for years but never documented it or taught it to others. When she left the company, her replacement struggled with the same issues she had solved long ago.

The Unused Medical Insight

A nurse noticed a pattern in how certain patients responded to a common procedure and developed a small modification that improved comfort. She used it with her own patients but never proposed making it standard practice. Years later, a formal study "discovered" the same modification, and it became standard care—but how many patients suffered unnecessarily in the meantime?

The Duplicate Work

A software team spent weeks solving a complex integration problem. Later, they discovered another team in the same company had already solved it three months earlier. The solution sat in a private repository, unseen—a light bulb illuminating an empty room.

The Lost Educational Resource

A teacher spent a summer creating an innovative curriculum for teaching statistics to visual learners. The materials were remarkable, but they stayed on her laptop when she changed schools. Her replacement started from scratch. The students who might have benefited from her work never saw it.

The AI-Generated Insight Never Shared

A marketer used AI to analyze years of customer feedback data and discovered patterns that pointed to an overlooked customer need. The insight was profound, but without a clear process for sharing it, the revelation stayed in her private notes. The company continued to miss opportunities to address this need.

When we create well, a virtuous cycle emerges:

Create: We develop something valuable through effort and insight
Share: We make it available to others who might benefit
Receive feedback: Others tell us how it could be better or different
Iterate: We improve it based on real-world use
Learn: Both the original creator and the community grow through this process

When we break this cycle—especially at the sharing stage—we short-circuit the entire value creation process.

Why We Keep Our Light Bulbs in Closets

If sharing created value can bebeneficial, why don't we do it more?

Several barriers stand in our way:

Creating is just the first step. Preparing creations for others requires additional effort:

Documentation: Adding context about how it works, why it matters, and what limitations exist
Formatting: Making the content accessible and readable for different audiences
Curation: Selecting which parts are most valuable to share versus what's too specific to your use case
Distribution: Finding the right platforms and communities where your creation will have impact
Maintenance: Updating shared content if any feedback comes in

In a world where everyone is already busy, these extra steps often feel optional. We tell ourselves, "I'll share it when I have time," but that time rarely materializes. The result? Valuable insights remain trapped.

Consider the someone who created research for others to use. She knows others would benefit, but packaging it properly would take another hour she doesn't have today. Tomorrow becomes next week, becomes never.

Fear of Judgment

"What if people think my work isn't good enough?" or "What if they judge me for my approach?" These fears keep valuable creations hidden.

A programmer might worry that more experienced developers will criticize their code. A parent might fear being seen as giving bad advice. A newcomer to a field might feel they don't have authority to share insights.

The "Not Invented Here" Syndrome

Organizations and communities sometimes resist ideas that come from outside their established channels or from people without certain credentials.

A junior employee might have a brilliant solution but lacks the confidence or platform to share it. A customer might see a way to improve a product but finds no clear channel to offer that insight.

Perfectionism

"It's not quite ready to share." This may be the most common reason light bulbs stay in closets. Nothing feels finished enough to merit showing others.

The irony is that sharing earlier often leads to better outcomes, as feedback helps improve the creation more effectively than solitary refinement.

No Obvious Channel

"I don't know where to put this so others can find it." Without clear sharing pathways, even the willing sharer keeps hoarding.

This problem is particularly acute across organizational boundaries. Where does the teacher share an insight that could benefit a healthcare professional? How does a small business owner's innovation reach others in their industry?

Undervaluing Our Creations

"This probably isn't useful to anyone else." We underestimate how valuable our work might be to others.

We assume that if something is obvious or simple to us, it must be obvious to everyone. But our unique experiences and perspectives mean we each solve problems in ways that others might never consider.

Creating Lighthouses from Light Bulbs

How do we ensure our creations create value beyond our own immediate needs? Here are practical steps:

Unless there's a good reason not to (privacy, confidentiality, security), assume that sharing your work creates more value than keeping it private.

Start small: Share one creation this week with someone who might benefit. This could be as simple as explaining a productivity trick to a colleague or posting a cooking tip on social media.

Schedule regular times to review what you've created and identify what could help others:

Monthly team "knowledge exchange" meetings
Weekly posts in community forums
Dinner table conversations about "what I learned today"
Quarterly presentations of what you've learned
Blog posts or social media updates about your professional discoveries

The regular cadence makes sharing a habit rather than an afterthought.

3. Lower the Bar for "Good Enough"

Perfect is the enemy of shared. Set a reasonable quality threshold, and when something passes it, share it—even with caveats about its limitations.

Example: "This is a draft approach I've been using. It needs refinement, but it might save you some time."

Create clear channels where work can be easily shared:

Team knowledge bases for internal resources
Public repositories for code and technical solutions
Community forums for lessons learned
Social media for brief insights and tips
Family chat groups for personal discoveries

Make these channels accessible and low-friction. The easier it is to share, the more sharing will happen.

5. Document Your Process

Share not just the final product, but how you got there:

What approaches did you try?
What didn't work, and why?
What constraints shaped your solution?

This meta-knowledge is often more valuable than the product itself because it helps others learn your thinking process. It's especially valuable when using advanced tools like AI—sharing effective prompt strategies can benefit many others.

Recognize and appreciate when others share their work. Positive reinforcement creates cultures of sharing.

This could be as simple as thanking someone for sharing an insight or as formal as organizational recognition programs for knowledge sharing.

Real Examples of Shared Light

Not all light bulbs stay in closets. Here are examples of shared work that illuminated many rooms:

The Open-Source Revolution

Countless programmers have shared their code freely, creating a commons of software that powers much of our digital world. Each contribution, from tiny utilities to massive frameworks, represents a light that escaped the closet.

The Home Cook's Blog Post

A parent documented their "15-minute healthy meals" approach that kept their family fed during busy weeknights. Shared on a simple blog, it has helped thousands of other families eat better with less stress.

The Shared Medical Protocol

A rural clinic developed a streamlined process for managing a common condition with limited resources. By publishing their approach in a medical journal, they helped other resource-constrained facilities around the world provide better care.

The Workshop Technique Video

A hobbyist woodworker created a simple video showing a jig he built to solve a common problem. Five years later, that video has helped thousands of others overcome the same challenge.

The Teacher's Resource Library

A group of teachers created a shared drive where they pool their lesson plans, worksheets, and teaching strategies. What started with five educators now serves hundreds, saving each countless hours of preparation time.

The AI Prompt Collection

A team using AI tools maintained a shared document of effective prompts for different tasks. This "prompt library" helped everyone in the organization get better results from AI tools and saved hours of prompt engineering effort.

The Lasting Light: Value That Extends Beyond Us

When we create and share the results, we extend our impact far beyond what we could achieve alone:

A useful resource might help people for years
A shared insight might evolve into something we never imagined
A problem solved publicly saves countless hours of duplicate effort

The light bulb in the empty room eventually burns out, its energy wasted. But the light that illuminates many rooms, many minds, many possibilities—that light creates value that outlasts its original source.

In our increasingly complex and connected world, the difference between wasted potential and realized value often comes down to a simple decision: Are we a lightbulb in a closet?

Every time you create something valuable—whether through traditional means or with the help of new tools like AI—ask yourself:

"Who else needs to see this?"

For further exploration of these ideas, see related essays on potential value and the nature of value.

A Light Bulb in an Empty Closet