Skip to main content

Embracing Inner Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is a breath from within, a spark that, once lit, makes each step feel lighter. It cannot be explained, only felt — like a wind that sweeps away the dust of monotony and makes space for the quiet brilliance of ordinary things.

Motivation is something else entirely. It comes and goes, a fleeting impulse dependent on something outside of us. A desire, a promise, a goal to be reached. But without enthusiasm, motivation tires. And what tires too much, eventually gives up.

Disinterest, on the other hand, is a dead weight. An emptiness at the centre of the chest where nothing grows. Life passes by, and one merely observes, without the will to reach out and touch it. The body senses it: shoulders sag, the gaze loses its light, breathing becomes shallow. Energy stagnates, time drags on, and everything feels like an unnecessary effort.

But enthusiasm — ah, enthusiasm! — it has roots of its own. It needs no applause, no encouragement, no reward. It arises when we find meaning in the smallest of things, when we sense something calling us without knowing why. Enthusiasm gives courage, puts light in the eyes, sharpens the awareness of what truly matters.

In healing, in work, in the quiet unfolding of days, it is the hidden key. Patients with enthusiasm recover more quickly. Lives lived with enthusiasm feel lighter. Because enthusiasm does not deny challenges; it dances with them, finds a rhythm, and moves forward.

And if it is missing? Then it must be sought — not with desperation, but with gentleness. As one might learn again to see the world, to feel the body, to listen to the silence without rush. For enthusiasm, when it returns, does not announce itself. It simply takes over.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Accounting for the Invisible

It is once more that time of year — the season for gathering documents, for preparing the annual offering to the revenue gods. Tedious, draining, bureaucratic. Yes, all of that. But it is also a curious interval of observation, a quiet adjustment of memory’s lens. After all, the past year — or at least its more tangible husk — lies partially inscribed in these papers. I say partially, for what is captured on the page is a witness of uneven fidelity. Absent are the details, the reasons, the delicate chain of responsibility. The numbers are all there: the income, the transactions, the movement of capital. But backstage remains hidden — the weight of effort, the hush of a conscience at peace. What is left is a pale suggestion of something more vital — this elusive current we call money. Energy transmuted, but only faintly traceable. A flicker of something once vivid, now flattened by ink and deadlines. And so I sift through the papers. Not merely to comply, but to remember. To...

Research shows that parental warmth shapes our worldview — how might acupuncture offer a reparative experience in adulthood?

  It is becoming increasingly clear that our worldview — whether we perceive life as welcoming or hostile — is shaped far more by the emotional bonds of early childhood than by material hardship or environmental risk. A recent study, published in Child Development , revealed that an adult’s sense of safety, beauty, and benevolence in the world is deeply rooted in the warmth received from parental figures — more so than in their exposure to poverty or danger. This finding resonated with me on a personal level. Time and again, I encounter patients in clinical practice who, despite being outwardly successful and high-functioning, carry an abiding sense that the world is cold, fragmented, even threatening. In acupuncture sessions, it is not uncommon to witness how such emotional imprints — stored not only in the mind, but also in the body — manifest as chronic anxiety, diffuse pain, insomnia, or emotional detachment. Through the lens of Chinese medicine, these states reflect imbalances...

What Strength Truly Means: A Letter to Men

There exists, hidden in the quiet undercurrents of our culture, a grand illusion: that manhood is synonymous with silence, that strength demands the concealment of pain, and that the measure of a man is his ability to endure without faltering. Such ideas pass through generations like whispered codes, accepted without question, repeated without reflection. And yet, when held to the light of reason, they wither like old parchment, for they are not truths, but relics of fear. It must be said — and said without apology — that you are allowed to speak of what has wounded you. To give voice to pain is not to surrender to it, but to name it, to limit its dominion. Silence may seem noble in the moment, but over time it hardens into a cage. Words, carefully chosen and honestly spoken, are the first instruments of freedom. You are allowed to weep — not as an act of collapse, but as a testament to your humanity. Tears are not the language of the weak; they are the body's recogniti...