363 Words to Round Out The Week (About Inspiration & Work)

I like this commercial from ESPN. It’s pretty simple. If you want to play on the big stage, you have to do the work to get there.

I’m doing that ridiculous workout program you see on infomercials late at night right now. In fact, I’m nine days from finishing my first ninety day circuit. (And I’m going to do it again.) When I started the program, I couldn’t do very many push-ups. But every week I worked at them. Now in week twelve I can do quadruple the number I could in week one.

The same is true being a creative. The fundamental thing that always held me back from writing anything was my desire for it to be perfect. But how could it be perfect if I never worked at it? It’s taken me WAY too long to realize this simple truth.

The last definition for inspiration is “an act of breathing in; an inhalation.” I like that a lot.

The body requires oxygen. I learned why in eighth grade science but I can’t recall now, so I just accept that it does. Inspiration in the physiological sense is the oxygen delivery process for the lungs, which in turn passes it on to the blood and so on. Inspiration in the creative sense is the catalyst delivery process for the mind. The thing I like most about this last definition is the implied constancy of it. We are always breathing. Constant inspiration. The day we stop is the day we die.

We are always breathing.

Inspiration is inevitable. Because we are created as emotional beings, we will always intersect with catalysts that send us into that transcendent state. That’s a comforting thought. Before I was always afraid of not being inspired. Now I live confidently that inspiration is always right around the next corner. Always in the next breath.

“What is the result inspiration produces?” If I’ve done the work to play on the big stage, if I’ve placed myself in the path of success, loaded for bear with a double-barrel full of words, full of rhythm and syntax and structure…

I’m working to be ready for that next breath.