The bad news about inspiration (DW#572)
A couple of days ago we said that the good news about inspiration and motivation was that we all experience it from time to time.
Now here’s the bad news: inspiration and motivation does not last. Meditation teacher Eknath Easwaran puts it this way: people are often heroes at the beginning (the Sanskrit word for this is arambhashura) of a project and take it up with a fanfare of trumpets and enthusiasm but they soon find that their enthusiasm soon "tiptoes down the back stairs."
What this means is that it is perfectly normal for inspiration and motivation to wane over time. The problem is not that we lose motivation for a task but that we stop moving forward when this happens.
So, while inspiration is great to get a project going, it is not a good idea to count on inspiration to help us complete a project.
When inspiration and motivation abandon us (and they will), we do not have to abandon projects that matter. This is the time when we need to remind ourselves about our purpose and use this to keep moving forward.
Inspiration, as they say, is for amateurs. In order to succeed, we need to train ourselves to do what needs to be done whether we feel like it or not.
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