MCTPeople are inspired by many different things. Some of these things include being inspired by their major, friends, family and other various aspects of life.
Webster’s dictionary defines inspiration as a “stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or an activity also as something, such as a sudden creative act or idea that is inspired.”
Todd Thrash, author of “Inspiration: Core Characteristics, Component Processes, Antecedents and Function” and a psychology professor from The College of William & Mary, said that there are three core characteristics to inspiration.
The three things include transcendence, evocation and motivation.
“Transcendence refers to the fact that inspiration orients toward something that is better or more important that one’s usual concerns, one can see better possibilities,” Thrasher said.
“Inspiration is conceptualized as an appetitive motivational state.”
Kelly Hornbach, a junior elementary and special education major, feels most inspired by her parents.
“My parents are my inspiration because they have always been pushing me to succeed so I could accomplish my goals,” Hornbach said.
The support of her parents helps Hornbach to achieve her goals and see the bigger picture.
Likewise, Brendan Murtagh, a senior history secondary education major, feels that his parents are his biggest inspiration.
“My parents are hard workers and love my family. They are commmited in everything they do for my sister and I,” Murtaugh said.
This type of inspiration can be summed up by a quote from Mark Twain, who once wrote that: “Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
“Something that inspires me would be either music or theater, because they usually get my creativity flowing, which helps when I sit down to write or when I have to rehearse my lines for a show,” Shannon Winters, a sophomore English secondary education major, said. “I usually have admiration for whoever I am listening to or have seen perform on stage and I aspire to be like them.”
The primary cause of Winter’s inspiration is her motivation. People are motivated in many ways by different situations in their lives. According to Thrasher, motivation is seen as the key element that helps most people to be inspired.
Motivation is the force that propels most people once they have experienced something that has inspired them. A person experiences a particular thing and then feels that they can do something extraordinary just as the person before them has.
