One of the blogs that I’ve loved reading the most in the past year has been Ashley’s, The Shine Project. If you’ve been around a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about her before. She’s got an awesome mission to… “The Shine Project’s purpose is to inspire you to live the highest quality of life obtainable, and to motivate you to join our efforts in making this world a better place.” It’s pretty cool.
I’m actually wearing a piece of their merchandise right now.
(Shop the Shine Store here.)
She’s recently started up this project called #100People – her “goal is to get inspiring stories from 100 different people”. I absolutely love this idea. I love the thought of meeting new people hearing their stories.
Now, you might notice that this blog post is called “my second reaction”. You might be wondering what my first reaction was. Here it is (this really shouldn’t surprise anybody):
“Alright, I really love this idea. I’m way more of a “game plan” person though – for instance, how exactly could I meet 100 people?“
which I was happily surprised that Ashley actually answered in her next blog post – which you can find here. So then I had the answer to my question. So you would have thought that I would have been 100% on-board with this project then.
Well, I wasn’t. And I couldn’t figure out why. Please don’t get me wrong, I want to be. Ashley wrote about her first person that she met, a boy who works at a vintage thrift shop. He told this great story (spoiler alert) about how he got over being shy. It was after reading this story that I realized why this project gives me agita.
It’s because if somebody asked me “do you have an inspirational story you could share with me?” – I wouldn’t have one. Seriously. I’ve been thinking about this for a week now. I can’t think of one thing I’ve had to overcome in my entire life. Which I’ve got to tell you, makes me feel kind of like a spoiled brat. Or really lucky. Maybe the second one.
I’ve been scared to sing in public and have worked on that – but I’m still scared to this day, so I clearly haven’t figured out the answer to that one yet. I’ve never really had to pull up a bad grade. I’ve never had a physical challenge to overcome. I’ve never worked really hard for a goal and then gotten it (.03 off from the GPA I wanted in high school, .03). I haven’t found any time in my life to volunteer to help others (which I’m going to work on for 2013). I’ve had to get over loves of my life before, but people have to do that every day – and apparently I’ve done a pretty good job moving on because I don’t really remember that pain. I’ve always had great friends and a supportive family.
I can’t think of a single story that starts, “I worked really hard and because of that I achieved…”. Or maybe there’s more to inspiration than that?
I just sort of take each day as it comes – wake up, go to work, read some blogs, go to bed, do it again. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I need a little bit more inspiration in my life. Then I can turn around and find a way to inspire others. Maybe Ashley’s post has done more than just hearing about inspiring, maybe it has actually inspired me to try doing something worthwhile.
Let me ask you, do you have an inspirational story you can tell me?
