Inspire and change the world.

About three months ago, a close friend shared a page (inspirationalfriday.com) that was calling for women to nominate other women who have/had inspired them. With unexplained enthusiasm, I wrote to the team and nominated two inspirational women. Women who had drawn me to myself. Who, in the first 10 minutes of meeting, I felt like I had known them for a lifetime. I nominated Aya Chebbi and Delphine Konda. I have been inspired by many great women, my mother being the greatest one. But I wanted the world to meet Dell and Aya. They exuded an energy that I wanted others to draw from. Their stories have been featured and many have been inspired.

On days I feel like abandoning the things that matter to me, I think of these two women, draw from their inspiration and remind myself that service runs not on easy wheels and that inspiration lubricates the wheels of service. These two remind me, just as Leymah Gbowee in “Mighty Be Our Powers” that you can tell people of the need to struggle, but when the powerless start to see that they really can make a difference, nothing can quench the fire. The powerless being the uninspired and the fire being inspiration.

Inspiration comes to us, takes a grip of our entire beings and runs the show. Perfectly and in direction. The greatest misconception is that inspiration is only drawn from casts in our television sets or acclaimed influential persons. Inspiration comes from ourselves, our surroundings, our employees, our situations. It comes when sought. It comes when needed. It works when let to work. It is effortless. Yet it is the one thing common in everybody who has made a difference. Its use synonymous with change and after, the world...

I am inspired by my continent. Its vastness and diversity. Its creativity and impossibilities. I am inspired by nature, it calm self healing powers. Its power to sustain. I am inspired by mothers who in their situations of poverty set their children to school and ensure that they are fed. I am inspired by my grandmother. Who even in her old age has the time to care for my invalid aunt and bed ridden grandfather. Ensures they are bathed, clothed and fed everyday before she goes to sleep. I am inspired by her relentless energy, characterised by her  dozing spells by the fireplace as she waits for their food to cook. Her sheer love...

I have met a new breed of people. Who refuse to make excuses in fulfilling their ambitions. Who refuse to sit and watch their communities waste away. People who look to the front and see the pasted mountings of their future and those of their countries. Work out the solutions in their heads and get to work. In most cases, those I have met look back and wonder how they did it. They always run to "inspired" as their source of energy. Whatever inspires them...makes them better people and changes the world. Inspire, it is the easiest way to change the world.