Inspiration vs. Dedication

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

I used to think that everyone else was lucky. They all had passions, they all had dreams. In others I saw consuming desires that propelled them into their futures. Some wanted to be doctors others engineers, others soldiers, while I sat to the side and didn't know what I wanted to be. I used to think I was broken, that some crucial part of me was damaged or simply missing or that I'd failed to pick it up along the way.

Now that I'm a bit older I've begun to wonder, was I just hoping for something to make the decision for me? Is there any inherent merit in a passion that you did not choose and a life that merely carried you along? I can't help but think that maybe what I saw as a self-propelled desire was really the outworking of a personal decision to pursue a goal. Was I longing for something that nobody actually possessed?

I like to write, I love it even. I genuinely enjoy sitting down and putting thoughts and words into an understandable format. I enjoy shaping nebulous ideas into a format that is accessible to others. I like creating worlds inside my mind, other realities where anything is possible and all through the medium of words. I like to write. But that enjoyment is not enough to make me write as much as I should or even as much as I wish I would. Interest and hope are not enough of a foundation for me to base my dreams upon. I need more.

I need more and the more I think about it, the more I think that what I need is dedication and discipline. I need to do what I only saw in so many others. I need to do what I misunderstood to be so easy in them, I need to do the work. I think maybe other people, like me, miss that dreams only come through hard slogging work. It's not that I was intentionally lazy, it's not that I was against the idea of working hard for my dream; it's only that I used to think the fuel for that fire came naturally. Now I think I see that it's less like gas in an engine and more like my feet on the pedals of a bicycle.

Photo by Rikki Chan on Unsplash

It's kind of like love. Real love doesn't come by a force that moves you. Those people move in and out of love like the days of a passing week. No, real love is a choice to live for another even when you may not want to. I love my wife not because I feel compelled to by some amorphous idea of “love” that is beyond my control but because I chose to do so going forward. I chose to give a significant portion of my time, my effort, my energy, and my life to her.

So why don't we all take the time to examine what drives us. Are we hoping for some unseen force to move us along or will we put our shoes on and get to walking? Will we languish forever in the hope that something will just pick us up someday or will we just get to it? I think I'd rather just get to work than spend the rest of my days in regret and the hope of a nameless someday.

Whatever you hope for, whatever you dream of, you can find it, but only if you look for it. You can only get there if you go there. You can only arrive if you leave. You can only discover if you explore.

There's a future for us all out there, let's find it.