Several years ago I created what I call an inspiration board that sits above my desk where I write. No, I was not seduced by that steaming crock of bull known as The Secret years ago, with its overly simplistic and completely ridiculous premise that should you envisage or desire something enough, you’ll get it.
Nope, my board isn’t full of pictures of expensive houses and signed cheques for a million dollars I will one day be able to cash. That is inspiration wasted. Instead, mine is full of quotes from women I admire and pictures of those I love. Motivation to live life to its fullest.
On days when I can’t think of anything to write or am worried an opinion I put to print might be too controversial, I look up at my board and see the bravery that has come before me and surrounds me. And it never fails to push me to be better, bolder and brighter.
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore,” is one of my favourite quotes from William Faulkner, something that always gives me a metaphorical mental push along. It sits beside a picture of me embracing my beautiful friend Mia (yes, one and the same) who is the embodiment of this philosophy in my mind, creating a media empire out of a blog when she thought no one still cared.
“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?” This quote from Hunter S. Thompson sits beside a picture of my brave late Godmother, a woman who left to travel the world as a teenager in the fifties and wound up married to a French viscount, only to be divorced unceremoniously some years later and live a life of struggle. She didn’t regret a minute.
Then there is a quote from actress Drew Barrymore, “If you don't take risks, you'll have a wasted soul.” This sits beside a portrait of tea cress herself, a woman who has broken the glass ceiling in Hollywood and created a successful production company.