by J. Paxton

Created on: November 18, 2008

As an art student, I was always fascinated and captivated by the idea of a muse. It was such a romantic notion; a spirit engulfing you and inspiring you to give life to something beautiful for others to enjoy and find their own meaning in. There are certain pieces of mine that I would classify as nothing but pure inspiration: the right idea at the right time, producing a creation that seemed effortless to both my audience and myself. These flashes were few and far between, but always exhilarating and empowering.

While in college, I also faced the ever-growing issues of depression and anxiety. In just a couple years, I became completely unrecognizable from the happy-go-lucky, carefree girl that I was known as for most of the first part of my life. I grew terrified of normal, everyday activities, and became obsessed with tasks that had never given me any bother before. There were many days that I could not find a reason to get out of bed, and would compulsively check to make sure my door was tightly locked as even more assurance that I would not be subjected to the outside world.

Motivation is the day to day driving force that keeps up from this and other types of debilitating behavior. There was a period of my life that a successful, productive day simply meant that I woke up, got dressed, and left my room. There was nothing tremendous or magnificent about this behavior, but it was a step forward for where I was at the time, and it was the fact that I pushed myself to do it, despite however I was feeling. I could not wait for something better to come along; rather, I had to MAKE something better come along.

Inspiration is, without a doubt, a wonderful thing. It can come in the form of a person, a few wise words, a life-changing experience. But as my mother always reminds me, the world owes us nothing, including some sort of epiphany. We would get nowhere in life if we constantly sat back and blindly waited for inspiration to hit us. We must take an initiative in our lives. Sometimes our motivation is a paycheck, a reward, recognition from our peers....and sometimes, it is simply the fact that we know that our actions are something that must be done. Whatever it is, it is absolutely necessary for US to push ourselves forward, not wait for someone or some idea to do so.

And if we're lucky, we'll be granted a bit of inspiration along the way.

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