Knowing Inspiration

There are words we use and hear every day without really understanding its meaning, and until we are caught in situations where our understanding of such words is tested, we believe ourselves to be lord of the word. I’ve suffered this same ailment, but like all fellow sufferers, my time of healing was bound to show up sooner or later. The turning point though, brought me down to earth quickly; luckily, unlike the forever wise tortoise in one of the stories we heard while still kids, I have no visible cracks.

            So I was supposed to have submitted this piece about a week earlier, certain factors connived to delay this piece until the very last minute. I happen to be in a battle with procrastination so I ‘naturally’ wasn’t perturbed about my inability to get ‘gingered’ into getting to work straight away; I dabbled with the plot of the write up in my head and though it wasn’t convincing enough, I gave myself time to perfect it.

            Then a series of unexpected events took me off course; my laptop went bad, my dad took ill and finally, malaria caught up with me and had its way. I blamed all these for my inability to produce the inspirational piece expected of me and decided to wait out the illness, expecting literary prowess from on high after full health was restored. At the back of my mind though,

                                                                                                                                                    Daniel

I feared that my misfortune wasn’t to be blamed on ill health but on my ignorance of the subject topic; inspiration. It wasn’t that I had no clue at all, but what I knew about it wasn’t enough to lead me on the path I wanted to travel.  I relegated such fear to the background and worked in ignorance.

            The owner’s day arrived as deadline day approached, I got my friend’s laptop and sat down to type but the words didn’t connect. I backspaced paragraph after paragraph till I got sick of the backspace key, till that point I refused to hear my conscience tell me that I didn’t know enough about the subject topic to write anything worth printing. But I fought on stubbornly and asked Coldplay to come to my aid. When Coldplay failed to open the flood gate of understanding, I asked Gregorian, my favorite choir, they too fell short and I sulked away. I almost felt compelled to send a mail to the Possibility Africa team, citing the seemingly numerous happenings around me as reasons why I wouldn’t be able to deliver this piece. They were sure to understand, I thought. But as much as I wanted to throw in the towel, my inner pride held on it, refusing to be insulted so gloriously and I forced myself to work on the piece. I loved myself too much to let myself down on such a royal level.

            That self love has helped me a lot, to be honest; it’s the most important thing that any individual can possess, love you first and everything else will fall into line. So in order to save face, I went about trying to understand what inspiration was all about.

            Inspiration is defined as an idea, a stimulus an influence; an event or occurrence that drives an individual to great feats. “What inspires me?”I asked myself and went searching in my head for that spark, that one thing that brought out the best in me. I couldn’t answer my question so I went asking, and I got many interesting answers. First thing I noted was that inspiration didn’t fall on the lazy; you don’t just sit around like a professional sofalizer and expect that spark to fall on you. You must first admit to the existence of a void, your incompleteness; which will create the need that fuels whatever inspiration is bound to come upon you. Before I made headway in writing this piece, I agreed with myself first that I didn’t know; so I went searching for understanding; the void of ignorance was thus filled with knowledge.

            Tobi is the owner of a booming welding business in Ogijo, a place bordered between Lagos and Ogun state, I asked him what drove him to work as hard as he must surely have done to get to the point in his business where people from as far away as Victoria Island came to him to build gates for them. His answer came out before my question ended, “if I no kill myself to make am good, who go do am for me? I been wan drive car and enjoy life, so I put my whole body inside this welder work wey I learn. I must be happy, and I don happy”.

            As laughable as his tone was, I learnt from him that lots of hard work, bad gate welding and mistakes had all worked together to get him to this point where he was a welding aficionado. It was his life, he wanted it to be as good as it possibly could and he knew that he had to take control of it. Funny enough, Mr. Tobi doesn’t have a shop; his office is by the road side, he just completed his second house though.

            To want the best for yourself, you have to love yourself enough.  That’s about all I decoded from Tobi’s brief story. What did u decode? You say self worth? Correct. Knowing that you deserve the best and striving towards attaining those things that make you feel complete. If you don’t have self worth its only right to say that you are a self hater. Self worth is often mistaken for conceit; self worth centers around love, love means acceptance, kindness, acceptance and care. Conceit on the other hand, is none of those thing; it’s demeaning and isn’t healthy.

            The measure of love you have for yourself rubs off on the people around you. Love your neighbor as much as yourself which is a generally accepted life principle clearly puts the love for yourself as a benchmark for how you treat others. If you don’t love yourself enough to want the best for yourself, it’s the same way you will see those around you.

            Let’s love ourselves; it’s not just something we do for ourselves but also for the good of all mankind. Without self love nothing is possible, and here at Possibility Africa we are all about possibilities. Take care of yourself, no one else will do so as well as you can.