Inspiration Versus Possibility
An Analogy using startup growth
“It is tempting to have inspiration while just having a possibility is slightly esoteric but has a greater impact as far as attaining self-growth is concerned.”
“Inspiration is following a path that someone else has already followed while just knowing the possibility ensures that we tread the path in our own manner.”
When do we take inspiration?
A person who is not on the path of true inner transformation would follow outside means of attaining growth. One such outside means is using inspiration. Maybe he wants to change some aspect of his life and he sees someone who has already achieved it and just wants to imitate his actions and behaviors.
Initially, inspiration may seem the most logical approach to attaining self-growth but one should realize that every person on this planet is different. The path that is followed by one individual may or may not work for another.
By simply following a person we demean ourselves and our capabilities. The driving force to achieve a goal should come from within and not from outside. Inspiration is just an outside force that makes us tread a path that may or may not be suitable for us. Moreover considering someone else as a role model creates a form of hatred against our own self and is not good for maintaining our self-image.
Example: Ram is a person who is not good at studies. His classmate Abhay on the other hand is the topper of his class. The easiest thing that Ram could do is to take inspiration from Abhay and tread the path that he (Abhay) takes in order to become good at his studies. Ram does exactly the same things that Abhay does in order to get better at his studies but alas he fails in his endeavor.
Ram didn’t realize that he is different than Abhay. Ram had quite some subconscious blockages that made him difficult study freely. Using inspiration actually created more amount of guilt within him as he couldn’t achieve what the other person had. Thus, inspiration in fact made the situation even worse for Ram.
The possibility is the key
Sometimes the only thing our mind needs to know is that something is possible. To attain that possibility we have to tread our own path. This path should be well crafted based on our mental state. But yes, without knowing that something is possible, we would not actually carve out a plan to achieve the same.
The analogy to a startup
Consider yourself to be the founder of a startup. The “possibility” is like finding a new market to expand your business.
“To capture this newfound market in order to expand your company would require strategies and efforts that are specific to your startup.”
In case someone uses inspiration then it is like finding that there is a new market that one can cater to but there is also a competition already in place. Inspiration creates this competitor and one actually has to fight with it in order to attain his goals. Similarly, when one uses inspiration to try to achieve some goal then he also creates an unnecessary competitor(blockage) with whom he has to fight. This fighting is unnecessary and could simply be avoided had he used ‘possibility’ instead of inspiration.
The analogy to climber
Consider a climber as shown in the figure above. The ‘possibility’ is like finding a rope that the climber can tread and expand its branches. This expansion would happen based on that particular climber and there are a lot of possibilities that it will be successful in it.
Inspiration is like finding a rope that the climber can expand its branches on but there is a possibility that the rope would not bear the weight of that climber and might break taking the whole climber down to the ground. Similarly, using inspiration to achieve a goal is like expanding on a weak rope that can snap at any time taking you down.
Conclusion
All our brain needs are to know that something is possible. Once we know that we can tread our own path based on our own mental state. This approach is always better than using inspiration to achieve the goal. Inspiration gives more emphasis on the other person and has a degrading effect on our self-image. Moreover, the path created by inspiration is quite weak and is susceptible to failure while the path created by just the ‘possibility’ is more strong and actually strengthens our self-image. Thus, we should create our own path arising out of knowing the ‘possibility’ and tread it to achieve the kind of person we want to be. It is safer and has higher chances of success.
