…That I strive to inspire (and be inspired)?
This is not a blog about ego.
Inspiration provides motivation. Motivation potentially leads to action. Action will always bring about the results and lessons. And, for me, results and lessons fill me with inspiration.
This is the sort of cycle I have been working on incorporating into my life. It’s not the first time I’ve worked in this arena… and it won’t likely be the last. When I am there it provides a result that ultimately reaps rewards but there are also times that I am not in the frame to accept inspiring people, places or things. Ultimately it is in those times that I need to be inspired the most.
There are tools in my life that provide a way to grow, learn and gain awareness about that things I really want to do and be. It never ceases to amaze me that there are periods that I will not use them even knowing that they work… have worked and will work again. Being in anger, resentment and holding any amount of negatives within you is ultimately going to burst out somewhere and somehow in ways that will not provide or invoke anything close to inspiration for others.
What inspires me? People with motivation, people who are real and honest. People who have taken their lives and changed them while accepting the struggles that it can sometimes take to “trudge” that path. I am inspired by messages of hope and by people who are selfless. It is common knowledge with the program that you have to give it away to keep it. Honestly… this is true for life in general. The “it” involved in the phrase could change from scenario to scenario.
Through the years I have not been immune to inspiration or inspiring others. I am well aware that when I was giving something of myself I was always in better spirits and spirituality. Life, however, can sometimes shift its gears and throw different priorities in our faces. We can sometimes make choices (none of which I believe to be the wrong choices, just opportunities for growth and lessons…) that take us out of the inspiration cycle and into a fevered path to success.
Don’t get me wrong.. there is absolutely nothing wrong with striving for or believing in the success model. There are ways to work with the successes in life that can lend to the cycle of inspiration. I have found them… but it took me a while, and, as noted above, I sometimes have the tendency to separate goals and forgo one for another completely. For me there were years of intense focus on changing my life into one of service and gratitude for having a platform to learn how to live a better way. As life would have it I then grew tired of the complete focus and pulled away to find my own individual “normal” life. For the record… I did just that. I moved myself into a very successful career, a happy and fulfilling social and traveling life and an astute awareness of how to keep the things I had been working so hard to get by using the essentials I had been taught.
But essentials are not always enough and finally I have come into a part of my life where I am working to honestly concentrate on the balance that will provide me the best of both worlds…. even during the times when it doesn’t feel that way.
And there WILL be those times.
So I seek out the people who can remind me how it is done. I look for inspiration and I put forth my best effort to inspire others myself. It is not necessarily my goal to inspire, however… the goal is to live with an honest and real intent to give to others what has been freely given to me. To help through my own experience and to help simply by listening. The most important thing I have learned in the past couple of decades is that I am not alone by a long shot. I am amongst many who share the same fears, hopes, dreams and troubles. If I hear you talk about your life I am likely going to find the similarities and work with them to live better myself.
Inevitably, I will feel better for it…. and then the cycle is in motion.
Be Happy. Be Well. Be.
May 9th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
You inspire me cousin, and I hope I may be one that in some way inspires you!!! We are on similar paths, both growing, learning and being, some of us are just that more aware and accepting and able to “give it up” (you!
). I have trouble with this aspect of life. I’m toiling with it right now–the whole giving it up to God or higher power. But I guess life is sometimes a struggle and search for more awareness–and as I can see from your example—it works–it happens—it’s awesome…
Love ya cousin. Miss ya.
Kevin