Inspiration
Cross posted from Union Foxtrot Bolg
It’s been a while since I posted. Life has brought a host of challenges, including new work, new skills to learn, and a cross country move. So, the blog fell off the plate. I’m back and pledging to start writing more regularly. Why now, in the midst of chaos you ask? Because I’m inspired to write. And you can’t pass that up.
Ever wonder where inspiration comes from? Have you ever just sat back and thought about why suddenly you felt inspired to do something? Be it going to the gym or the bar, something triggered a desire to act. To break free of the inertia and do something different. Maybe it’s studying physics or running marathons. Maybe it’s writing a blog about inspiration.
Artists sometimes spend their life seeking inspiration, or so I’ve seen in old movies. OK. Cartoons. But I’ve wondered why we do hard things. Why do we challenge the status quo, why do we build new things? Sometimes it’s necessity, I’ll give you that. Be really nice to walk over that river…next thing you know somebody builds a bridge.
For me inspiration comes in many forms. Need, sure…nothing beats filling a void. Beyond that as I grow wiser (notice I didn’t say older. Careful…careful…) I find my inspiration flows from people I know and admire. Achievement’s infectious. We all have great ideas (ok, most of us…there’s always the “hold my beer guy”), but many of us never get the idea in motion.
The point is some force within us awakens and suddenly we’re putting one foot in front of the other and eating up the miles despite the pain. And not even being chased by, say, a giant flying purple people eater or anything.
The first marathon was to tell Athens of a great victory over Persia at Marathon…and if my memory serves, Pheidippides collapsed and died after, so there’s that… but we now do this sort of thing for the pure challenge of it. For sport. Why?
If we want to find out who won a battle we either check Twitter or, if you’re close enough look up and see who’s getting blown up fastest, and hope you don’t get blown up in the process. We don’t need to run 26.2 miles. Or even 13.1 miles. But people do. Lots of people. Vets with prosthetic legs. Successful entrepreneurs. Not just elite athletes with something to prove. People who just set their mind to it and do it.
I admire those people. It takes real discipline to push your body that hard. Training day in and day out for a race you pay to run, so you can look up and say “I did it.”
That, my friends, is inspiration. A person must be inspired to take that on. That inspiration is contagious, it makes me want to run a marathon. OK, not really…I barely got through the mile and a half in high school. But they inspire me to tackle the toughest problem with the same discipline and resolve to look up at the end and say, “I did it.”
No matter your marathon, be inspired.
Seek out your muse and embrace the gift of inspiration. Then start running, or in my case, writing.