A Sucker For Inspiration

So here's a weird thought:
Almost everybody is a sucker for inspiration, but hardly anybody leads an inspired life.
-What's with that?

Well, maybe I'm just speaking for myself here...

I notice that there are a lot of inspiration-spreading methods out there (daily emails with quotes; calendars; all the Oprah-moments and -shows; videos on YouTube; etc.) and that there's apparently a truckload of money to be made with self-help/get your act together/live the life you've dreamed of - concepts (or scams, depending on your point of view. Hehe)...

Yet, many people seem to be defeated and without much joy in their life. I notice at work, with some friends and acquaintances, random encounters...A lot of grim faces, a lot of tiredness, grumpiness...a rather bleak outlook on life, its pleasures and challenges.

Not that I'm always cheery and inspired, but I try to be.
I try to see the small, everyday joys...The flowers on my bike ride home, the sun rising just above the horizon, the beauty of the ocean around here...
I try to be nice to people (or at least to the ones who deserve it. Haha.)...
I try to be a positive in people's lives, not an energy-drainer...

Well, anyway, I guess I've been a little grouchy lately, too. Not exactly sure why though.

Maybe it's because I feel a little aimless, listless, joyless...pretty much allkindsofthings-less. This might still be part of my 'vacation-hangover', but I also feel as if I need to make a decision about where I'm going with ... well, my life.

I'd hate to be one of those people of wasted potential or unfulfilled dreams...Suddenly realizing that life has made decisions for me...Feeling stuck in a cruel web of obligations and pressures that somehow crept up on me...

Right now, I feel my life is lacking real structure and goals (But I also have no obligations or pressures...Which is a good thing, I guess.). I have a lot of options...a lot of "roads in a wood" I could take. It's just a matter of taking the proverbial bull by the horns at some point...Hmm.

So, this might all sound a little confused. That's because I am, too.

Oh, and Robert Frost? Try having more than one road to take...

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Plus, a song that always makes me feel sentimental and hopeful at the same time...
Good Riddance