“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
How often do we get a spark of inspiration while driving, riding the bus, whilst listening to a friend talk or even in the shower?
How often do we take the time to note it down and address it?
It’s often these little sparks that provide clues to where our interests lies.
Follow their trail and see where that leads.
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him”
— Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychologist, author of Man’s Search for Meaning
It’s so easy to be comfortable during this time of shifting priorities towards work-life balance, mental health care and self-care.
Are you in tuned with what your gut and body are telling you about what how you desire to live? And do you inherently know if your daily actions will get you there? Only you can answer that. Only you can decide how you would like to live and if you’ll be satisfied with yourself at the end of the road.
“Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became ‘geniuses’ (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
Do you afford yourself time to explore and nuture your gifts? Are you drawn to short-cuts and quick-fixes? Do you allow yourself the luxury of trial and error? Do you dismiss things quickly despite knowing that you didn’t give it your best effort?
“Among his various possible beings each man always finds one which is his genuine and authentic being. The voice which calls him to that authentic being is what we call “vocation.” But the majority of men devote themselves to silencing that voice of the vocation and refusing to hear it. They manage to make a noise within themselves … to distract their own attention in order not to hear it; and they defraud themselves by substituting for their genuine selves a false course of life.”
— José Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher and essayist
Do you listen to the seductive and often rational voices touting paths that are practical, commercial-centric, realistic and easy to get started?
Nothing wrong with that at all. Just be sure to check in with your sense of self. Know what you’re going in for. To learn, to gain exposure, to try and see if that is your cup of tea. Just never stop exploring and never think that anything is final. These little steps can often help you discover more about yourself and even cement your inclinations towards your true passion.
Scripting Life 
Love to hear what you think