Inspiration as Potential Energy
Converting potential energy into kinetic energy happens all of the time. You roll a ball down a hill. You knock something off of a table. You tap your foot. It's easy.
So why, then, is it so difficult to turn inspiration into action? If you think about it, inspiration is the potential for some action. An idea strikes you and then you set out about turning that idea into something concrete.
Lately, I seem to be able to get things out of my head and onto paper, but never beyond that. I can't make a song into music. I can't make a design into a website. I can't seem to dedicate myself to the real work. I'm not lazy. I'm tired. And, yes, there's a difference. Being tired comes from exhaustion, stress, the fact that I have to spend eight hours of my day working on other ideas that aren't always mine so I can provide for myself and make a living. It all leaves me exhausted and unable or sometimes unwilling to really work on my own ideas.
Where do the great innovators find the time? Do they neglect their work, families, and friends? Do they live with nothing while they devote themselves to their next-big-something?
If that's what it takes, why can't I find the courage within myself to set out and attempt it? Forgo the typicalities of the "real" world while I work on my masterpiece?
I don't know.
But I do.
I'm afraid to.
Or I'm too busy thinking about how it must not be necessary to make such great sacrifices just to begin a search for success. Sure, to eventually make something of myself, I'll have to sacrifice some big things along the way, but right from the get go? Funny. Because all of the time I'm wasting worrying and thinking about it is being spent by other, more fastidious and more brilliant people to get where they want to be headed.
Shit.
