“Inspiration i vardagen” was first posted on my Swedish Blog.
Sometimes you pass through people in your life who leave a bit more imprint than others do; people who inspire or impress you.
I’ve run into some of those in my life, it would be odd if I hadn’t, but particularly a few have remained in my mind, maybe because what they did was so close to my own dreams and my own heart.
Allow yourself to get inspired by others!
I met 3 of them while in Granada, Spain doing a 6 weeks intensive course in Spanish.
Marie was a teacher, but couldn’t speak one word Spanish, even though she’d soon be teaching it!
Marie, me and the nice lady in whose home we stayed.
The first one in my story is Marie, an American girl, a teacher, born and raised in France. She was part of some form of the Christian church – Baptism or something like that. Anyway, her church had offered her to move to some remote village somewhere in Spain, to teach French.
Marie did not feel her lack of knowledge as an obstacle, so she packed her bags and took off to Spain, to spend 1 year learning Spanish. The story was so obvious to her in some way; she had no doubts what so ever as regards to her being able to learn Spanish, but instead thought: of course I can!
Many people just stop right there in that stage, because they’re afraid and don’t believe they can do it, so they don’t even try.
While telling me this story, I realised it was so obvious Marie had no knowledge about the Swedish law of Jante, but instead threw herself into the challenge, head first. I was both incredibly inspired and a little jealous of her confidence in her own person.
Meeting Myléne from Canada was really like looking at yourself in a mirror, although I didn’t quite understand it at the time…
Girl no 2 was also in my Spanish course in Granada, and her name was Myléne, and she came from Quebec, Canada. She was a couple of years older than I was and had just been through a really bad break up with life in general.
One day she just stood there, successful with a well paid job and a husband – the whole deal (although no kids) and got a panic attack. Burned out – a fierce mental breakdown. Kind of like the one Elizabeth had in ”Eat, pray, love”. Her story was even longer and more fascinating than the few lines I’m telling here, obviously, and she was writing a book about her whole inner journey (and the outer one), which was not finished when we met.
If she could, then so could I…
She inspired me since she had gotten out of a bad situation, where her life had more and more been centered around money and now when she finally followed her heart, she felt a whole heap better and saw life with completely different eyes, stronger than ever before.
Without really understanding it I was in exactly the same position as Mylene was, and barely one year later I too would start my downwards spiral to the bottom.
The translator who lived my dream life.
Person no 3 was a man, whose name I’ve long since forgotten. I was out walking, on my way down from Alhambra, which was one of my favourite places in all of Granada. For all of you who have seen it – you know what I’m talking about.
I love that kind of stuff – ruins, gigantique old buildings, everything. I can walk around for hours in places that usually makes other people bored. After only 2 hours, Susanne was sighing heavily up at the ruins of Machu Picchu and stated she’d be sipping coffee at the café. 8 hours later…
Machu Picchu – one of the most inspiring and magical places I’ve ever seen!
Anyway, Granada. As I’ve already said, I was walking downhill from Alhambra, and thought why not try out a new path today. I passed an old man sitting outside his house on a simple chair. His cheerful “hello” made me answer back and to my own amazement I stopped and asked about his wellbeing.
Yes, I understand that even you, my readers, are in shock. I stopped and talked to a complete stranger!
I guess I felt there were something about this man, and there was. He was 65 years of age, originally from South America, but he now lived in Spain, Mexico and a third house in another country I can’t remember, although I remember them being 3 houses in 3 different countries. He spoke 6 languages fluently, and was working as a freelancing translator.
He invited me into his home, which was the coolest house I’ve ever seen. It was inside the mountain, and more like a carved out cave.
He heard about my translator plans and thought it was a terrific idea, and an excellent choice. You don’t need a permanent place to live, and if you love travelling, which he also did, it is a wonderful profession. He had never regretted his choice of profession, and he pointed out he didn’t think I would either.
Travelling is what inspires me most of all, and I would just love to do it full time! The photos above are from Granada, Spain.
In some way it felt like a destined meeting – I’d chosen a completely different path than I used to take and he just sat there! Willing to give me advice and inspiration!
These three people have inspired me a lot, and I still think about them from time to time whenever I feel down or suffocated, or simply when I just don’t have the energy. Then I get a little happier and feel it will be ok.
We all need someone to stimulate us, inspire us and impress us, but maybe it’s not that awesome photographer who always shoots the perfect images, but a real person whose road is more like your own, whose goals even you can achieve.
I really do believe you can reach and accomplish anything whatsoever, if you only believe enough in yourself to do it and if you’re willing to fight.
The sky’s the limit!
SparaSpara
Padawan & Ponderer 