It is a lie to say that inspiration seeks you out.  This creative genius I’ve heard so much about rarely ever greets me, and when it does, it is usually when I am just drifting off to sleep.

But when I need it most — when I am practically begging for some sort of muse to spark some new idea within me, — inspiration alludes me.  I’ve stared at this ebony cursor flashing upon the page for hours, and the more I stare at it, the more I realize that this vertical bar has created a barrier in my life.  A barrier between waiting and chasing.

The Age of Romanticism says that we can find the answers we seek in nature.  The cinnamon blush of the morning sky, the dew-beaded blades of grass, or the velvet shades of wildflowers should elicit some bit of inspiration as to what to paint, draw, or write.  Yet, all the same, I find my heart pebbled with distress as deadlines creep upon me.  I spend many restless nights, attempting to side step the confrontation of laziness.  But the knowledge of impending deadlines suffocate the peace within me.

While I wish to say that I am waiting for some muse to sprinkle an ounce of inspiration, the reality is that I am procrastinating.  For the creative sort, we may like to soften the word by merely saying that we are waiting for that stroke of inspiration.  Thus, it has been all these past weeks for me as I tried to come up with some sort of an idea to write upon.  I’ve watched numerous TED videos, read countless news articles, and have kept my ears peeled for fragments of conversation to free some sort of suppressed creative energy.  I’ve even tried writing this back page column.  About ten different times.

Yet, here I am.  The opening hours of the day that our newspaper goes to press. Pounding the keys with such fervor as to purge out any of the demons that may have been dampening my thoughts.  Nevertheless, inspiration never did come.  Rather, I had to go running after with a bat, pinning whatever remnants of ideas to floor, as I beat it with the pent up frustration of it never having come to me.

We have been born into a culture of fairy tales and fantasies. Prince Charming will save the princess if only she waits long enough.  However, there comes a time when Rapunzel has to climb down that long tower herself.

Inspiration and the desire to work rarely comes for us.  We celebrate procrastination as if it were something to laugh over.  For creative and non-creative alike, we all suffer under the spell of procrastination. We keep putting things off because we can’t find the inspiration or the drive to accomplish a task.

Similar to Peter Pan’s shadow, you must chase it around the room, drag it across the floor, and sew it into your mind, because no matter how painful it is, you will get the job done.

So you want to be the next Hemingway or Dickens? Start writing.  You want to get more than five hours of sleep a night? Log off of Facebook and finish your homework.  Want to change the world? Then stop complaining and start doing.

Don’t casually shirk off your responsibilities or your aspirations because you just don’t “feel like it.”

You’re never going to feel like it.

Learn to stop breathing life into indolence.