What Inspires You?

It scares me that I’m going away on a retreat for 10-days. It’s a demanding course from Vipassana, where you meditate for 10 days. From morning to night, you meditate for about 10 hours each day.

But the teachings are what inspires me to go. To live a better life, a harmonious life with peace and compassion for other people. There were 3 things that stood out to me today that inspired me to move forward with more confidence, and courage. Here are the three:

1. Renunciation of violence, harm, ill will, and animosity.

We are not perfect, and even the best of us with the best intentions face the trials and tribulations of life. Sometimes we fail, sometimes we are met with situations outside of our control, and sometimes we can develop certain feelings or tendencies that do not serve us. But actively making the decision to not react to your own anger and feelings of negativity, and renounce your old habits opens you up mentally. It clarifies your thoughts and help you see a new light.

2. Hindrances of doubt, uncertainty; and worry.

I am definitely guilty of overthinking everything, worrying too much, and caring too much about what other people think. And recently, I’m way too worried about my own impact on the people around me. When you get conscious of yourself, lose confidence in yourself, and start doubting your own self — and especially if you’re even a good person to begin with, sometimes you freeze in the moment, or may face a wall of frustration that you cannot seem to get over.

3. Courage, Confidence, Awareness, Concentration, Wisdom.

These qualities are your friends. Courage. To bravely face the tribulations of life and walk into them smilingly with awareness. Confidence in yourself. And letting it speak over the doubt and the worries. The right awareness that helps you choose your best course of action and helps you stay equanimous. And wisdom to listen to others, learn from thinking, and learning from your experiences. We are not perfect, and we fail. But by having confidence in ourselves again and putting our best foot forward, we learn, and we learn better to do next time. And then the next time. And the next time. Until we get better and better. We don’t try to go back on our mistakes. We learn and we learn to move forward, trying to be better and more peaceful, and more loving and compassionate towards ourselves as well as others.

Now, what inspires you? What inspires me are the things that develop me as a person. Leave your comments down below!