Are you PIGHEADED enough?

“Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.”
― Maya Angelou
You might come into terms with this quote by the end of this write-up.

But how being pigheaded, being a stubborn is related to light or shining? Let us find out.

Aim. Goal. Objective. Destination. Ambition. All are more or less similar to each other. Aren’t they? What makes them so similar? A hustling rush of reaching there, or achieving them. Isn’t it?

In today’s date, we are surrounded by all kind of people, but mostly with the ones who dreams of being someone or like someone. Many want to reach the brand name of Bill Gates, many want to become an effective leader as Narendra Modi, many are dumbstruck by the innovative thinking of Mark Zuckerburg, many admire Lata Mangeshkar’s voice, many idolize late Michael Jackson’s dance steps, and many deify the power of words of Stephen King. I mean, you can see any kind of variety in this mushy ambitious surrounding. Almost everyone has an idea, if not a plan, of where he/she wants to reach at. Now the question is how to reach there? What would be the first step? Probably, inspiration.

Yes, inspiration is what marks the start of any journey. If you didn't ever feel like walking ahead, you would never walk. That feeling has to be there to initiate an exciting trek. It has to be a trek; you cannot expect to reach at such great heights through a smooth, balanced and uncomplicated road. Such road will lead you somewhere, but not where you are hoping for. Inspiration will make you strong enough to start, but that is not the end. One needs to stay inspired throughout the trek and after the trek too.

We gain inspiration through a lot of means, and mainly through others. We seek for motivational videos, speeches, articles, and people. Once we are done with listening or reading them, we feel an adrenaline rush within ourselves. We pump up, and feel we can achieve anything and everything around this world. Some stay motivated for days, while some for hours, and then they head back to the same sources of inspiration they headed to in the start. Here we have a problem. Yes, a problem of becoming a stoner, a stoner to these outside factors. When you rely upon them every time you feel low, you are losing an important part of yourself in the process.

Dedication, patience, constancy - all from within, then why not inspiration? It’s not bad to seek inspiration from others, but it’s not healthy to become habitual of seeking help from outside. If you have chosen a path to travel, don’t expect your loved ones to be beside you, all the time, after you started off your journey. It’s your path, not theirs. They have their own journey, own motives and own life.

It is then when you will have to seek out help from within, from your own self, as nobody would be around. You will have to keep that flickering flame alive within you.

“The sun shines not on us but in us.”
― John Muir

Having said that, how to do that, how to keep ourselves inspired from within?

This will be decided by the genuineness of your aim, by the strength of your stubbornness to achieve it. Whosoever said stubbornness is unappealing has probably never had a goal in his sight. In fact, staying stubborn is the only requirement in many scenarios.

If you have never been serious, and from serious I mean dead-serious, about your aim, dim are your chances of achieving it, and so the question of staying inspired doesn’t even come into picture. Having a concrete motive in mind, you have already covered a considerable part of your journey. Rest will be covered by your hard-rock dedication. Mayhap you have to work, when others are partying; you presumably are stuck in your day’s to-do list, when others are enjoying a recent movie in theater. There are countless things around to lure you, turn your mediocre side on and zealous side off, that is when you have to resist those baits and buck up yourself the most. Most of the outside factors will do lesser good and more of harm to you. The only entity who will never betray you is your own self.

The stronger, the more resistant, and the more stubborn you will be, more are the chances that you will be a good inspiration and motivation for yourself.

The cycle of inspiring and staying inspired never ends because once you reach your destination, you become an inspiration for others, who in future might transform into an inspirational idol for others.