Finding Inspiration in Everyday Actions
How observing others can ignite your passion
For the past few months, she has been regularly tracking her health as she moves to a healthier lifestyle.
She never had a problem following a regime and found very few days when she broke tradition and or did not follow her schedule.
Despite this, in the last few days, she felt a certain resistance to getting herself out of her home to the track downstairs. For the first two days, she blamed her workload for it, but even as the weekend came, she realized what was holding her back. She felt a strange sense of sadness walking alone while people around her seemed to always be either in pairs or in groups.
From young children playing together to groups of old ladies, everyone seemed to have someone to push them out of their comfort zone and motivate them to walk while she dragged herself on her solitary walks.
Knowing she could not mess up her schedule, she decided to focus on someone who, at least, from the looks of it, was as lonely as herself. While hard to place at first, she soon found a middle-aged woman whom she had never seen, walking every night with determination etched on her face.
The lady wore salwar kameez, the traditional Indian attire, every day and looked like she had just finished the mammoth task of caring for her family. What inspired her was that she seemed to still find time to push herself to take care of her health.
She observed this lady for the next week. Then, one day, the lady appeared wearing gym tights and a t-shirt. She had a sense of accomplishment about her and, for once, was looking around, not just focusing on the jogging track. Then, it struck her—we can all draw inspiration from one another.
The lady had probably drawn inspiration from those in activewear, while she herself was an inspiration of consistency and self-prioritization for someone.
She realised that inspiration did not require great actions or profound words, it could be found in the simplest of actions in the most ordinary places, as long as someone searched for it.
With that confidence, she decided to continue her walk, hoping she was inspiring someone along the way.
I enjoyed the above article by Jill Fischer. For a long time, I have utilized mundane tasks as a means of mindfulness and contemplation and this article resonates with my thinking pattern.
