Finding Inspiration

John and I went walking last night, and while we were trying out a new path around the block (and making me inevitably confused with how winding the crazy streets are around here, and John trying to inform me about which ones were parallel while showing me a map on his phone that made absolutely no sense at all to me), we talked about what I wanted to do with this blog thing.

After all, why am I writing it?  What is the point of all these words?

It certainly isn't making me any money, and I doubt it is going to be life-changing--or even terribly informative for much of anyone who likely has twenty or thirty other blog sites they visit every day on their normal tour of the interwebs.  So what is the point?  What inspired me to actually sit here and write a blog every day?

As we walked, I found myself somewhat disappointed with my own lack of ambition.  John sent me this article after reading yesterday's blog, and my gut reaction was to feel somewhat uncomfortable.  After all, I'm not doing a whole lot with my life right now, and I haven't been for a while.  I've talked about wanting to write, and I've done some writing here and there; but in the end, those endeavors were short-lived and left me nowhere nearer the ideal in my mind of "being a writer" (assuming, of course, that that's what I want to be).  Certainly I had created some amazing things (in my mind), but if they remain as nothing more than "something I do sometimes for fun", how does that make any difference at all in my life or in anyone else's life?

And the long and short of it is: it doesn't.

BUT....

If I do nothing save those little moments of inspirational writing, I'm not going to be anything more than that.  And I'm not okay with that.  I want to be something more than that, and the only way that I can become that something more is to write--to write in this blog, every day, with the hope that something I write will be of interest to people.

And if it isn't? you ask.

Well, for now, it's a start.  I'll cross that second bridge once I've determined what's interesting to people and I can actually write something with regard to that's cogent.

And so with that determination out of the way, (we're now moving on from the why to the how, by the way), I now had the daunting task of trying to figure out what to write about.  Every day.

John was kind enough to offer me a few ideas--such as making a Friday post that included links to things that I thought were interesting.  Or perhaps doing that at the end of the month.

I decided to take him up on the end-of-the-month post.  (Spoilers: the end of the month post will be full of links and things I find interesting or have referred to over the past month.)

But the real secret to writing is being able to find inspiration--not just wait for it to find me.  And so, in part, that's another reason I am here, typing out these words into a blog.  This is a test to see if I can find something, every day, that I care enough about to write about it.

And believe me, ...so far, it's a lot easier than I imagined it would be.

There are SO MANY THINGS going on in the world--so many writers, so many ideas, so many ideas on how to find or create ideas, that I could probably be writing this blog for--well, the rest of my life.

Finding inspiration doesn't take a lot of work if you're willing to go looking for it.  Finding something that inspires you enough to do something about it, however--that's the real trick.

So maybe you're all ready doing something with your life.  Maybe you have a job, or a career, a family, or a hobby.  Whatever it is that inspires you though--whether it's money, or a better car, or being able to live comfortably, or power, or your family--whatever that inspiration is, I hope it makes you happy.

And if it doesn't? you ask.

Find something that inspires you to happiness.  People are always in need of happiness, and I'm pretty sure if you could bottle the stuff, you'd be rich.  (By the way, if this inspires you to bottle happiness, and you succeed at it, I would appreciate a mention--or a check.)