Spirit

photo credit: Carlos Y.

Work can drain your inspiration. The daily grind can break you down so that after a few months and years you have forgotten about your long term goals and dreams. One way that you can help prevent this is by keeping an inspirational image on your desk.

Why keep an inspiring image at work?

Images are used everywhere. We use them in advertising to entice people to buy a product, in religion to inspire faith and trust, in magazines to illustrate a story or experience, etc.

For example, I could tell you a story about a young starving boy I met in the slums of India. I could talk about how his face was gaunt and his ribs protruding through his skin. Whatever I said, however, it would never have the same effect as one photo.

A picture really is worth a 1000 words – it can conjure up emotion and transform your mental state – and that is why you should keep one in your work space.

Here are some ideas for inspiring photos you can keep on your desk:

A personal hero

“As you get older, it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.” – Ernest Hemingway.

The most common and probably the most effective photo you can keep on your desk is one of your personal hero. As a Buddhist I have a small picture of my teacher in my office. Whenever I get stressed or start to lose motivation I look over at the photo and it reminds me why I am working and gets me back on track.

The photo of a personal hero should be of someone who you want to become like. It might be Bruce Lee or Michael Jordan. It might be Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi. It might be Jesus or Buddha. It might be your father or mother. Who ever it is you should make sure it is someone you want to become like. This will inspire you when things get tough.

Photos of our hero help us connect with a deeper part of ourselves that our job quite often suppresses. This is one of the most important things you can do for yourself – connect with your deep sense of potential and hope.

An inspiring landscape

photo credit: bbjee

Another popular image to have in your workplace is an image of an inspiring landscape. My father has worked in real estate for over 40 years and in his office is a photo of the first commercial property that he ever sold. He says it reminds him of the good old days.

For me it is mountains. I love the Himalayas and so a picture of some snow capped mountains with a surrounding forest or waterfall really makes me feel good.

A photo of a wide open space is the best thing to have in your office because it makes you feel less trapped and confined.

A negative event

Sometimes I think that it might be a little depressing to have a negative event pictured on your wall. However, I know a lot of people who have something horrible up on their wall as it inspires them to work harder and stay focussed on their goal to help.

For example, I know someone who works for an animal protection service and she has a picture of a dog that is near death from abuse and starvation. The photo is of the dog’s eyes and the sadness it is communicating is palpable. She says when she looks at this photo she is able to put aside all her selfish ambitions and problems and just put all her energy into the cause. This is quite a powerful thing.

I think if we are going to have a negative thing pictured on our wall we should also have something positive. For example, if you have sick dog on your wall you might also put a healthy and happy dog on the other side to show that you are making some progress. If you don’t you might find things get a little bit depressing.

Your family

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu

Having a picture of your family on your desk is probably the most common. It reminds you of why you go to work in the first place and gives you something to look forward to as you know you are going home to them at the end of the day.

There is something extremely comforting about having a photo of your family at work. Your family is your clan, your team. They are people who will always accept and love you. This is a good thing to be a part of when it seems like the world is all about competition, speed and stress.

Can anyone think of any other good pictures or images to put at work?

Stepping into his bath to relax one day Archimedes saw the water level rise and suddenly realized that the volume of the displaced water was equal to that of the body part he submerged. He was now the first person in history to be able to calculate the volume of irregular objects. He was so excited he screamed out “EUREKA!” and ran down the street naked.

So how can we have a eureka moment like Archimedes?

Sudden understanding requires relaxation

photo credit: Cheekybikerboy

Nothing resembling a eureka moment ever came from a tight mind. All the great minds of the past had their sudden understandings when they were relaxed or when they had properly trained their mind to quiet down. In Archimedes’ case it probably had a lot to do with the warm bath. He had resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to do any work and was going to chill out in a bath. Eureka!

If you think about it it is quite logical. If your mind is tight you are focusing on forcing an idea to come about. Your mind will be full of thoughts like “I must think of an idea” or “I must have a eureka moment”. It won’t happen. If, however, your mind is quiet there is more room for new thoughts to come in or more space for you to notice a small thought that might otherwise sneak through.

Relaxation is not just a physical act. It is a mental one. This is important. You could by laying in a hammock by a pool in Hawaii and your mind would be going at a hundred miles an hour thinking about this and worrying about that. Relaxation has to take place in the mind for there to be enough space to be creative, inventive and original.

Sudden understanding requires lots of study (but not too much)

photo credit: Wonderlane

Many people think that people like Archimedes just had sudden realizations without doing any work before hand. However, it is important to understand that their sudden realizations were not really all that sudden.

If you think that Archimedes just got into a bath and had a spontaneous out of the blue realization about “volume” then you would be wrong. The man was a very smart and diligent physicist who spent his days mulling over problems just like this one.

If you want to have a eureka moment you need to do hours and hours of study in the given area. You need to know every angle, history, mechanic and so forth. Once you have this background information you will be more likely to have a breakthrough.

However, there is a danger. People who study too much often lack experience in their field. In Buddhist monasteries the teachers are very careful to ensure their students don’t put study over meditation because if they do they run the risk of over conceptualizing certain concepts or ideas and missing the point. Experience is very different from theoretical understanding.

Think of study as being like reading about an elephant. You can learn about its height, trunk, eyes, memory and so on. Now think of experience as being like actually going to the zoo and seeing an elephant. It is a very different thing and in most cases study pales in comparison.

Like Archimedes when he saw the water level rise you need to see your field in action if you want to be able to penetrate its nature and come up with something innovative.

Take a look at buddhist master Mingyur Rinpoche and how he made took a theoretical concept and made it experiential and came up with something quite innovative – using panic attacks as his meditation practice:

Sudden understanding requires new perspectives

photo credit: gaelx

The story of Archimedes and the bath occurred after he was given a crown by the king and asked to determine whether a dishonest goldsmith had used some silver instead of pure gold. The problem was he couldn’t damage the crown by melting it down and weighing it so he had to find some other way. He found that way when he had a bath and his perspective changed.

It is very difficult to have an understanding if your views and opinions are very solid and fixed. People who have great breakthrough moments are those people who are willing and able to think out of the square and look at different ways of doing things. This, of course, is a lot more difficult than you think. Human beings are accustomed to doings things a certain way and to think outside of that conceptual framework is extremely hard.

To look at a problem with a new perspective you can do things like:

• Set aside religious dogmas
• Talk to people from different backgrounds and cultures
• Work at a different time of the day
• Approach a problem using a new forumla
• Etc.

Of course you don’t have to do these things all the time – just change them when you are focussing on the problem you have at hand or change them occasionally to help you gradually shift your perspective.

Sudden understandings require a clear mind – meditate

photo credit: bandita

One of the best ways to make your mind more “likely” to have a breaktrhough is by keeping it clear, healthy and well trained. The best way to do this is to meditate.

Meditation clears your head of a lot of thoughts and makes you more disciplined and open. When you have a lot of space in your head you are more receptive to certain ideas and new ideas seem to flow more easily.

It doesn’t matter what meditation you do the yogis and scientists all agree – it is good for your intelligence, creativity and your brain health. Perhaps try some simple breathing meditation. This will help you get out of the habit of “normal thinking” and put you in a frame of mind where eureka moments are more likely to occur.

Sudden understandings require patience

The last thing I want to talk about is the art of being patient. Every great idea in history was a result of weeks, months or years of work. If these people weren’t patient they would never have had their history altering moments. Like them, we need to be patient. Without patience our great potential will not have a chance to manifest – give yourself time!

Have you ever had a eureka moment?