Motivational Mundane
Once upon a time, in Detroit Michigan, a wayward young girl started a whimsical blog to share her random struggles, stories, and aspirations with the world. After years of inconsistently rambling about this and that, she decided it was time to make her blog much more consistent and write every single week! If you couldn't guess by now, that young girl was me! Deciding on a once a week post was overwhelming at first, but now that it has become my routine, I rather enjoy it. Picking a day took a bit more strategy though. I had to figure out which day made the most sense, partly for me, and partly for everyone else. One of the deciding factors for a Monday blog post just so happens to be because of the particularly catchy tagline; "Motivational Monday". Besides all of the personal therapeutic benefits of writing, I really do love to give any sort of inspiration or motivation to anyone who may be reading. I never really know who will get what out of anything I may write (unless people tell me of course), but I've tried to make inspiration a central theme in recent years.
Motivation, I've come to discover, is actually quite a tricky. As well intended as it all appears to be, things are just generally easier said than done! I realized the grand scheme of it all while coming up with new material for my Thursday videos. I wanted to do (and probably still will do) a video about de-stressing tips. I have the tendency to be very zen, and in analyzing why, I've come up with a few things that make my brain extra calm. All the things I do to remain stress-free are fairly simple to me, but I do realize that a person who struggles with a more severe form of stress will have a hard time grasping the concept of calmness from sitting on the floor in silence for 20 minutes. A lot of the tips I give are DEFINITELY easier said than done.
This line of thinking also made me curious about the ever growing phenomenon of what I like to call "unsolicited advice" (which just so happens to be a very riveting chapter in my upcoming book! Stay tuned!). Unsolicited advice happens when you share an experience or problem with another person and they give you advice or a solution that you may or may not have asked for. I have been on both the receiving end and the giving end of unsolicited advice before, as I'm sure a lot of you may have been as well. A common example would probably be relationship advice; A friend is always having trouble with a mate of theirs, might spark an instinctive advice reaction to kick them to the curb and move on. In a perfect world, sure, everyone would be strong enough to end things with the people who hurt them more than help, but things are never really that simple or easy, are they?
While inspiration and motivation do come from the best intentions, I'm sure it can still be frustrating at times. One example I can think of would be travel bloggers. Now I know I've done a bit of travel blogging from time to time, so maybe I'm talking about myself a bit too, but I use to follow this very famous travel blogger named Nicole [1]. She's still pretty awesome, but sometimes I'd wonder why I even look at these luxurious perfectly framed moments from people's lives for "inspo"? Is hearing other people's success stories really pushing me forward or is it making me sad that I don't have it that easy? Reading an inspiring biography of a rich or famous person is, I'm sure, meant to motivate us to a successful career path like them, but often my mind will switch to, "Well sure the worked hard, but they were also lucky." My blog, for example, I sometimes talk about how I quit my job a few years ago and have been making it work while still living a decent life. I'm sure some people reading would like to quite their job too but know they won't have the same outcome as me because I have certain privileges in life that they may not. It's all a very sticky subject.
All in all, I do admit, I love giving generic advice and words of encouragement. It just seems inclusive and applicable to a wide array of situations, showing how connected everything is. I know that usually the motivation meant to inspire is much easier said than done most of the time. This doesn't mean it's impossible though! I believe in making it seem easy, it will at least get some people to try. Nothing will ever get done if we don't AT LEAST try. Comparing our journeys with people who are light years ahead of us will absolutely get frustrating. Happens to me all the time. Sometimes shifting my focus to someone similar to me who is SLIGHTLY farther along on a path I would like to be on can give me the little extra push I need for the time being. It's important to remember that if we are the one in the position of giving inspiration, we already have the advantage and it will be harder for others to follow exactly what we did to get exactly the same results. Do any of you feel this way about seemingly harmless motivation at times? Let me know what things you think are much easier said than done!
P.s. I think Nike has the record for the most hilariously simple motivational catchphrase of all time; "Just do it".
P.p.s. This subject also made me think about something I heard a while ago, "never in the history of calming down has someone calmed down after being told to calm down". It may seem like a helpful thing to say to someone, but I realize now that duhhh, calming down would be ideal but emotions don't have an on/off switch.
P.p.p.s. On a quasi-political note, I do notice often that we all have our own ideas about what would make the world a better place. While a peaceful, inclusive, and loving society is perhaps the ultimate goal, knowing that it won't get better easily, at times seemingly impossible, doesn't stop motivating us towards that paradise.