Hanging onto Inspiration

Seth Godin wrote a good blog post today (Friday, May 17, 2019) called: ”Three Times of ‘Forever’. 

Here’s a nugget from it…

There’s the forever of plenty.This is when we erroneously assume that the stuff that’s good is going to stay good. That this moment, this leverage, these resources–we can squander them because they’ll be here tomorrow.

This sort of forever leads to heartbreak, because, inevitably, it doesn’t last. It can’t.

(3 days later)

It’s so interesting… now as I follow up on what I began to write last Friday, I can’t remember exactly what drove me to feel inspired enough to begin what was supposed to be a succinct, insightful blog post. I started it to make sure I didn’t lose the stimulus, but even 72 hours later that burning desire I had to share my thoughts has fogged over. As I read the “nugget” above today, sitting in a taxi cab (Uber and Lyft didn’t respond at Logan, strangely) in bumper to bumper traffic trying to recall the source of motivation in the words, I just can’t do it. It's an interesting quote, for sure, but why did I find it blog worthy??

Is it age? Memory loss? I will say that in the past 5 years I’m struck more and more often with what feel like breakthrough insights in one moment, but if I don’t follow through with writing them down nearly immediately, days and especially weeks later those aha moments disappear almost entirely. 

So the key is to write it down, all of it. When I review later, with my own words giving context to something that gave me energy, it’s an easy exercise to pick up where I left off. But if I assume I’ll remember later, because “OBVIOUSLY” its so memorable and important that I could never forget, I can almost guarantee its gone.

I have something to write and share (to myself if nobody else) at least once and usually more than once a day. It’s all about habits. In this case, re-establishing a once daily – for 20+ years actually - habit of writing down the sources of those things that bring me joy, excitement, and also sorrow and regret, is something I will prioritize.

Let’s see what happens. I’m now officially within 6 months of turning 50… 172 days to be exact, not that I'm counting... but seriously, there is NO better time than now, for just about anything I care about.