INSPIRATION

When I decided to go back to my passion, which I was doing part-time, and leave Corporate America, it was a big step at the time because I got use to the security of a steady paycheck plus what I was making on the weekends as a hairstylist.  I decided to go back to the corporate world because I wanted to go back to school and where I worked, particularly, paid for school so I signed on the dotted line.  My plan was four years in and get out.  I was there for seven years and was miserable.  Everytime I went to the hair shows, I felt like a fraud.  I wasn't true to my trade and frankly I missed doing hair on a full-time basis and was tired.  I had to choose one and it wasn't much of a choice.  I stumbled upon this book as I was awaiting the package that my company was offering to release me from that corporate jungle.  I would read this excerpt over and over because it was so true to what I was feeling and so true to what it says.  As I feel new things beginning to happen and my journey expanding, I have been brought back to this book.  Hope this helps to motivate or inspire someone.



I've been re-inspired this month so I started reading, "The Alchemist" again.  I just wanted to share this excerpt from the introduction from the author himself:

"So, why is it so important to live our personal calling if we are only going to suffer more than other people?

Because, once we have overcome the defeats--and we always do--we are filled by a greater sense of euphoria and confidence.  In the silence of our hearts, we know that we are proving ourselves worthy of the miracle of life.  Each day, each hour, is part of the good fight.  We start to live with enthusiasm and pleasure.  Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our soul, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.

Having disinterred our dream, having used the power of love to nurture it and spent many years living with the scars, we suddenly notice that we always wanted is there, waiting for us, perhaps the very next day.  Then comes the fourth obstacle we overcame: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives.

Oscar Wilde said: "Each man kills the thing he loves." And it's true.  The mere possiblily of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt.  We look around all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either.  We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we have to give up in order to get this far.  I have know a lot of people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mistakes and never reached their goal--when it was only a step away.

This is the most dangerous of the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly  aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest.  But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World and you understand why you are here."