The Endless Inspiration Loop jordanmarsh6, January 26, 2021April 5, 2023 Even if you’re not a religious person, you may appreciate this story. Paul the Apostle in the New Testament was traveling to many places to spread Christianity. One of my favorite parts was when he, what seems like incidentally, found himself in Athens. He was traveling with a group of people that brought him there, and then that group had to leave him. It says that, “while Paul waited for them at Athens…” (Acts 17:16) he basically takes a stroll around and goes people watching. Come on, we all know we do it! I think we can be reassured that it’s not all that creepy when it has been around for so long. Also, this is hilarious. Anyways here’s the basic idea: Paul goes people watching, doesn’t like what he sees, starts preaching in markets and synagogues, some people listen some don’t, and then he gets the attention of some philosophers in town. And before the writer of Acts recounts what Paul said to those philosophers, he inserts this fascinating critique of Athenians as a whole: “For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.” (Acts 17:21) Remember that cycle I talked about in my last article? If you forgot here it is: Inspiration -> Motivation -> Plans -> Action Here’s what that cycle looked like for the Athenians, and what I think it looks like for us a lot too: Inspiration -> Inspiration -> Inspiration -> Inspiration -> … If we’re hyperactively looking for new things to talk about or new ideas to come up with, the “action” cycle never gets finished. I’m going to call this Hyperactive Inspiration. We just hop from one idea or piece of news to the other, never actually letting the rubber hit the road. Lest you think I am on my high horse, I am so freaking guilty of this it’s insane. I am way too interested in too much stuff, and it often times ends in me doing nothing about any of it. I’ll never forget something I learned on a field trip in elementary school (I know what you’re thinking: Turns out those weren’t a total waste of time!) We went to a local news station in Salt Lake City and got to ask questions of one of their main anchors. Somebody asked a question that I think we have all wondered: “Why is the news so negative? Why can’t there be more positive, uplifting news stories?” The anchor thought about it for a bit and said something like this: “Let’s say there are 100 planes that fly in and out of the Salt Lake airport every day. When one plane crashes, and ninety-nine successfully land, which one are people going to be most interested to learn more about?” Sure, it is great that ninety-nine planes landed successfully, but that’s not the outlier. It’s not a dramatic “new” thing to talk about. If you think about it though, the true miracle of the day was that those ninety-nine planes successfully transported their passengers to and from their destinations in speeds unthinkable to people living 150-200 years ago. The miracle is in the work, but the “news” is in the drama. The real work of being inspired, getting motivated, making a plan, and acting on that plan is actually pretty boring. It’ll likely take persistent effort over a long period of time with no obvious benefit or reward. Frankly, I am trying to teach myself this lesson by writing a weekly article. If you are a hyperactively inspired person like me, then let’s figure out together how to prioritize the dreams filling our heads and actually get working. Self Improvement