Is there such a thing as too much inspiration?
Intuitively, our answer would likely be an emphatic “Absolutely not!!!!” We can always use some more inspiration, right?
But I think there is a problem with receiving too much inspiration.
The Mishnah in Pirkeh Avot (3:7) makes the following startling statement:
המהלך בדרך ושונה, ומפסיק ממשנתו ואומר, מה נאה אילן זה, ומה נאה ניר זה, מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו מתחייב בנפשו.
One who walks along the road and studies, and he interrupts his study and says, “This tree is so nice!” or “This plowed field is so nice!” – he is considered as though he owes his life.
At first glance, the Mishnah here says that if a person is learning Torah during a trip, and he takes a brief moment out of his learning to admire a tree or a field, he deserves to die.
Isn’t this a bit harsh?
We also need to understand, why does the Mishnah speak here only of a person who is learning while traveling? What about a person who is learning in home or in a yeshiva? And what about somebody who is traveling and is not learning?
Furthermore, what’s so beautiful about a plowed field? Who has ever marveled at the beauty of a field that has been plowed?
One commentary explains that the Mishnah isn’t talking about somebody on a bus or a train. It’s talking about somebody who, while traveling along the road of life, interrupts משנתו – “his study,” his own, unique process of growth, to admire and try to copy what other people do. He sees other people’s “trees” – their final product – or their “plowed field” – the work they’re doing to produce and to achieve – and he stops his own journey to follow their example.
We need to stay on course, and follow our own road, the road that makes us stronger, the road that works for us. If we are pulled off course by every “tree” and every “plowed field,” if we feel compelled to emulate every inspiring thing that we see around us, we’ll never achieve. We’ll be pulled in too many directions to accomplish anything.
If we steer off our own course because we’re too busy looking at other people’s “trees” and “fields,” then we “lose our life”; we forfeit the special, unique life that we are supposed to be building for ourselves. We’ll be all over the place. We won’t be focused. We need to find our path and stick to it.
Of course, we can always use some inspiration – but only if that inspiration helps us follow our own path, without pulling us away onto to somebody else’s path.
May we all succeed in charting our course, setting our unique goals, and achieving them to the very best of our ability.