As promised, today I am finally going to write about inspiration. Both in inspiring people and also in being inspired myself.
The theme came to me last Wednesday when I was feeling completely terrible and not at all up to writing a whole blog about it. I really wasn’t feeling up to much of anything aside from being a lazy slug laying on the couch watching TV and feeling sorry for myself because I was (insert whiney voice here) SICK. Which being sick really doesn’t seem inspiring and, really, it’s not. It’s not at all what made me want to write about inspiration.
What did it do you ask? While this lazy blob was oozing on the couch there was a noise from the phone notifying me of a new email. A friend on Facebook had tagged me. My blogs inspired her to start writing her blog again after a lengthy absence. And I’m not going to lie that felt pretty darn good and I was pretty darn proud of myself. So this slug propped up and while in the process of attempting to throw my shoulder out of joint patting myself on the back so hard I got another notification on my phone. This time it was a message on Facebook from another friend saying that all my incessant posts about my Bountiful Baskets (ask me about them - I won’t shut up) inspired her to order one for the first time. Which felt even BETTER and I was even MORE proud of myself.
I had inspired two people in the span of a few hours to do something different. And I will say again it’s a good feeling. I like inspiring people. I like challenging them to challenge themselves as I firmly believe the more we believe in/inspire others the more it will inspire us to achieve whatever we desire.
So now that brings me to personal inspiration. What inspires me? Well, my family for one. My friends who I care for more than I ever would admit and that, barring something awful, I will be loyal to until the end. My job that seems to ask more of me all of the time and I am inspired to and strive to meet the challenge. Music that evokes certain times and feelings for me that I want back or simply enjoy reliving once again.
A specific inspiration has been at work. A woman there has challenged my team to lose weight. It’s the holidays which most of us realize is an awful time to try and keep weight off much less lose it. But her challenge is rather unique and easy to track and, at least in my mind, extremely inspiring. What we do is set a goal. How much do we want to lose? For me, it’s 10 pounds. We started last week with a weigh in and each week we weigh ourselves again. For each pound we lose, we put a non-perishable food item on our desk. So everyone in the whole area can see the progress we’ve made and we can laud one another‘s accomplishments. Final weigh in is mid-December and every single can of food you’ve “earned” by taking off pounds is put in a pile. If you’ve met your goal, good for you. Yay! If you haven’t met your goal, however, you owe food. Double your original goal. Yipes. But the good thing is then all the food “earned” or “owed” will be taken to a local food bank to help needy families eat. We’re one week into the challenge and although my desk is woefully bereft of any cans yet (I have negative one cans - sad pandas) I know we’re doing this for two good causes - needy families and our own health.
Now a little bit more about inspiration and then I will let you all free to go about your lives. I started this blog, of course, to try and spark an interest in myself again to work on writing a novel. And I am pleased to report all of this inspiring and inspiration has me thinking again about one of the book concepts I had previously thrown about and I find myself fleshing out characters and ideas and even devising little scenes in my mind. I’m not ready to start committing anything to “paper”, mind you but baby steps…
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