Inspiration

I recently submitted a draft article to a national cycling magazine hoping for publication, but not to my surprise, the editor didn't want it. But his feedback included lots of good advice which I shall obviously take on board – there's no way I'm going to ignore professional advice from a professional editor!

But the latest version of this particular cycling magazine, along with the editor's advice, has set me thinking. The articles within the magazine are about massive, extraordinary feats of endurance; long-distance riding above 4,000 meters altitude, riding 9,000 km along the Iron Curtain; these tours are I assume intended to inspire people to adventure. But they don't inspire me at all. I didn't even feel I wanted to read them. Why? Because you need to be super-able and super-confident to do these things, or you need to be able to survive without income and be away from work for an extended period. Most working people have neither the time nor the opportunity for such mammoth excursions, even if they have the physical ability to undertake them. I know these trips are for others and not for me and when I see them dominating the magazine, I just groan.

I need inspiration, but I need realistic inspiration. I want to read about things I might actually be inspired to do. Places I might be inspired to visit, and places I might be capable of visiting. Rides I might be able to do, if I am prepared to stretch myself.

Am I alone? Do desk-bound and normal working people really want to read about adventures they will probably never have? Do they really like reading about super-achievers they can never be? Surely we can't all be world-adventurers, even if we can all be weekend adventurers.

But then again (as it was recently pointed out to me) millions of people watch professional football on the television, though an impossibly minute few actually get to play it. So there's clearly something I'm missing here, and it's me that doesn't get it!

I have just two ambitions. I want someday to inspire one person, and I also want to be paid something, however little, for something I have written. I am sure I will achieve these two ambitions one day. Hopefully, I'll achieve them on the same day.