Today’s query comes from Ryan, and it is:  “My question is fairly broad, but it is this:
When you are feeling down in the dumps, and have low self-esteem based on recent occurrences, how do you find the spark again to re-kindle a passion to go forward?” So big a question that I cut and pasted it from comment box just to not write again.

Well Ryan, to abbreviate, you are asking how you can  get your mojo back, yes? But you use the word “spark.” Interesting. Fire. Heat. Lightning..inspiration…brilliance. “Spark it up,” as we used to say at Estonia University, many nights.

Let us for a moment look at this “low self-esteem” not so much as an absence of something, like a low tank of gas. Let us look at it as a full something. Let us look at this low self esteem as a loud fat man, a houseguest, who is planted on your couch and is saying bad things about you while eating your Pita Chips and watching your cable.

And next to him, sitting is your “spark”, a svelt woman that looks much like a young  Gloria Graham.  So it isn’t that your spark is gone, is just that the fat man obscures the spark, crowding her out of sofa, and being too  loud for you to hear.

So now our problem is less bad; it is merely how to remove fat man from equation and make loving time to “spark”.

There is a way to do this, but it is not easy. The fat man likes to talk.      So, Listen completely to what he has to say, (he is a houseguest after all, someone invited him) listen as if he is not talking about you, but merely someone you both know. Listen, perhaps he will say one or two things in his rant that you will find of value. Now, this fat man will leave when his food runs out. His “food” is not just the onion dip, but your own guilt, loathing for self concerning these “recent occurences”. So, let go of this. Would you forgive a friend for doing the same things you did, if he felt very bad about them? Yes. So why not forgive yourself?

Why are we so patient and forgiving of others, but not ourselves? If Zamboni accidentally drove Land Rover through your living room, due to excessive drinking- wouldn’t you forgive him, eventually? As long as I didn’t kill you or your dog? Yes. I know, again, from experience.

Trust me. The fat man of low self esteem will leave. He may come back next week to watch Rose Bowl with you, but he will be quieter because you heard him out, plus he will leave if the food runs out.

Now on to the spark.

To catch again that spark it is quite simple. The spark will come to you, but only if you DO. If you invoke a muse, a muse of poetry, cooking, wakeboarding, whatever, if you decide you will create something beautiful with your sweat and tears, than trust me, you yourself will create spark. A great man once told me, “inspiration is for amateurs.” What this means is that the friction and frustration of creation, THIS is what makes spark. Ask the muses, then work hard, then you have more sparks than 1906 fire.

Ryan, I wish you luck. Be a spark, then be a spark for someone else, then you can die happy.