Eye Candy - Your Inspiration Snack for Great Writing Ideas

When you see an eye-popping image – a photo – of nature, people, pets, a sunset, food, cars, clothing, and you just love it, you are seeing what for you is “Eye Candy”. Motivational photos are used all the time in advertising, PR, signage, banners, websites, blogs and logos and are meant to push or pull you to buy a product or service or just buy-in to the website, blog or message being presented.

When inspiration is needed to find something really interesting to write about, something that your niche market will really eat up (if you will pardon the pun), you may find just what you are looking for in great photos or inspirational quotes.

When you combine great photos and totally inspiring quotes you have fireworks for the brain and rhapsody for the soul.

Here are 3 examples.

"Flaming enthusiasm backed by horse sense and persistence, it is the quality that most frequently makes for success."
- Dale Carnegie

"Today is life, the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto."
- Dale Carnegie

This Pure Flame of Passion - The Book of Life

"In most of us there is very little passion. We may be lustful, we may be longing for something, we may be wanting to escape from something, and all this does give one a certain intensity. But unless we awaken and feel our way into this flame of passion without a cause, we shall not be able to understand that which we call sorrow.

To understand something you must have passion, the intensity of complete attention. Where there is the passion for something, which produces contradiction, conflict, this pure flame of passion cannot be; and this pure flame of passion must exist in order to end sorrow, dissipate it completely."

- J. Krishnamurti

A burning, passionate, all-consuming interest in doing something or building something or writing something will more assuredly lead to success than will having money, power or influence. When choosing what articles to write, follow your heart. Those matters for which you have a flaming enthusiasm have a much better opportunity of being successful. When you write, delve deep into your feelings and don’t apologize for writing your truth. If you fail, try again, and again. Never let go of your enthusiasm. Change what you are enthusiastic about, but never live without enthusiasm.

"The greatest motivational act one person can do for another is to listen."
- Robert E. Moody

"It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open ones mouth and remove all doubt."
- Mark Twain

Listening is an action in which the miracle of understanding takes place

"It seems to me that very few of us ever do listen. We do not know how to listen. I wonder if you have ever really listened to your child, to your wife or husband, or to a bird? I wonder if you have ever listened to the mind as it watches a sunset, or if you have read a poem with an attitude of listening? If we know how to listen, that very listening is an action in which the miracle of understanding takes place. If we know how to listen to what is being said, we shall discover whether it is true or false. And what is true, one does not have to accept: it is so."

- J. Krishnamurti

When you are in conversation with someone, when they are speaking, listen with all your heart. If you are just thinking of what you will say next, you may miss a gem of wisdom. Even if they sound like a fool, you can pick up little pieces of wisdom – even if it’s how and why you disagree with them. When you listen with your mind and heart you pay respect to another human being. They might have trouble articulating what they mean; they may have a great idea they are struggling with and can’t quite say it in a way that makes sense to others. If you listen to them in a half-hearted manner or interrupt them, you may thoughtlessly push them to give up when success is close. Thomas Edison didn’t give up even after 999 attempts to achieve his dreams. He said,

“Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

You may be in a position to help someone see how close they are to success and what their next step might be. When you are particularly alert and attentive to what someone else is saying, and don’t interrupt, you can give them the hope, confidence, or courage they need to continue with their dream.

Little delights can make a person laugh with joy. We can choose to scold the puppy or the kitten for being on the furniture or we can feel great pleasure in their innocence and be encouraged by, what seems to be, their love of life. Sometimes it is important to break away from the serious matters that keep us engaged in solemn and grave busyness.

You have heard the saying, “Take time to smell the roses.” Well, I say, take time to watch a kitten play or a puppy wrestle with a piece of rope. We become too old too soon to live every moment of time in stoic seriousness. There is much in the way of adversity in this life. We can show patience and accept life’s trials. We can also remove ourselves (if only in our mind) and contemplate the sweet, irresistible delights of the miracles we have known in life.

Believe me, our problems will still be there when we return from contemplating what the cartoonist, Charles M. Schulz, said, “Happiness is a warm puppy.”

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened."
- Anatole France

"Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves."
- James Matthew Barrie

"The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up."
- Mark Twain

Juxtaposition is a powerful technique of arranging two or more items, ideas or thoughts to suggest a link among them or to emphasize the contrast between them. One of the benefits of growing older is we develop a broader base of experiences and thoughts. As Steve Jobs says, originality is often a process of “connecting the dots”; of collecting ideas from experiences and displaying them in a manner that appears new and original. The more we read, the more we research, the more we mindfully look at nature, the greater the possibility of re-arranging our experiences and thoughts into valuable new insights that truly motivate and inspire others.

Where does your inspiration come from: motivational photos, pictures in your mind, inspirational quotes, what a child says? Why not share some of them with all of us.