Power of Inspiration and Enthusiasm - We all have an ideal version of our lives that we dream of turning into reality. We may even spend our days making plans and working hard to achieve those dreams. But as they say, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. When life happens and we are dealt obstacles and setbacks, sometimes even our best laid plans to achieve our dreams can go awry. This can leave us despondent.
What does it take to overcome any obstacle to achieving your dreams? To not just survive but thrive?
The answer is a strong reason to never give up.
Having meaning in life inspires us to do our best work. When we are inspired, big obstacles seem like small speed bumps. When we are uninspired, the smallest hindrance to our daily progress towards our goals can seem huge and throw us off course.
Take a moment to think about all those dreams, big and small, that you have not yet pursued. And the ones that you have pursued but have given up on. Dig deeper to figure out the reason that gave you the inspiration to pursue these goals in the first place. Remember the excitement you felt taking your first steps towards this goal!
If you still don’t feel it, watch the video from Swami Mukundananda to renew your enthusiasm towards achieving your goals.
Podcast - Power of Inspiration and Enthusiasm
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Video Transcript - Power of Inspiration and Enthusiasm
It is said, don’t count your life in the number of breaths that you breathe. Count it in the number of moments that took your breath away. How do such spectacular and rich moments come to our life? They happen by this ingredient called inspiration. Inspiration is the fuel that burns within us. That powers us to bring our best talents and abilities to bear upon the work at hand.
Today, on day 15th of this happiness challenge, I wish to share with you the secret of an inspired life.
One schoolboy, during his summer break, he applied to the nearby mall for a job. He was invited for the interview, but on reaching there, he discovered that he was the 21st kid in the line. However, he was motivated to get the job. So, he scribbled a note and placed it before the receptionist. He said, “Mam, can you please give it to your manager sitting inside?” The manager read what the child had written and decided he is the one who deserves this job. The child had written, Sir, I’m the 21st kid in the line; decide nothing until you see me.” In those words the child had expressed his enthusiasm. Enthusiasm or inspiration is that inner ingredient that brings out the best in us. When we are equipped with this virtue of motivation, we become practically unstoppable, as was Mr. Soichiro Honda, the founder of the worldwide Honda automobile empire.
Mr. Honda was not born with the golden spoon in his mouth; rather he came from a lower middle class family. When Mr. Honda was in engineering school, he created a new design for piston rings and suggested it to the Toyota Corporation. They placed an order with him and extended the capital for him to setup his plant. However, when his factory was constructed, an earthquake in Japan leveled it to the ground. Mr Honda was not discouraged. He decided to remake it, but by then Japan had entered the Second World War and cement was being diverted for the war endeavor. Mr Honda’s enthusiasm made him come up with a new technique for making cement, with the help of which he remade his factory. However, by then, America had also entered the world war and their bombers bombed his factory. Mr. Honda was still not discouraged. He utilized the gasoline tanks thrown by the bomber planes to reconstruct the factory once again. When the production was ready to being, Japan lost the world war and along with it all its colonies. Fuel was now in short supply. People did not have the fuel to drive their cars, where was the question of Toyota purchasing his piston rings? Mr. Honda was driving his bicycle, when he had a brainwave. He added a motor to it - when he drove it around his neighborhood, his neighbors were fascinated and requested him to do the same for them. When he did it for 15-20 people, he realized that had a marketable idea there. But he didn’t have the money. So he procured a list of eight thousand bicycles stockists of Japan and personally handwrote notes to five thousand of them. Eighteen hundred extended their capital, with the help of which he made his first motorcycle called the Super Cub. With the help of which he started manufacturing his motorcycles. In his lifetime, the Honda Corporation employed a hundred thousand people worldwide. And today it has gone way beyond. That quality of inspiration was so vital to Mr. Soichiro Honda’s success in his work.
That is why, the philosopher, Henry David Thoreau said “You may loose everything in life but your enthusiasm and you will gain it all back again, but that person who has lost his inspiration, now he is truly bankrupt.” So today, let us think of how we can inspire ourselves and how this added fuel of enthusiasm, will help us improve the quality of our work and assist us in our endeavor to be better people.
Thank you!
