A friend once commented on how silly it was to her that women’s magazines were published every month which simply regurgitated the same tired stories: weight loss, career success, financial management, family problems/solutions.
My answer was that while the individual stories might be repetitive, the whole point was to provide ongoing motivation. Out of sight, out of mind is a well-known aphorism for a reason: what we don’t put mental effort toward, we eventually put aside or forget about.
It is far too easy to lose focus on goals we don’t keep constantly in mind.
Think about the people who are in constant contact with their purpose: athletes, artists, entrepreneurs, and professionals of every kind in every field or trade. They are focused and goal oriented, and no matter their intrinsic “talent” they are constantly reviewing their goals, analyzing their performance, and striving to do better. Their success builds on itself because they put mental effort toward their practice and their careers, every day, through study and self-motivation. As the saying goes, “overnight success usually takes about 10 years of hard work and showing up.”
One thing I noticed over the years is that by and large, religious people know this very well. They read or listen to sacred texts daily, go to services and/or study groups every week, and use other tools like daily devotionals and prayer books to keep themselves mentally in tune with their faith. Many make it a point to listen to music, radio shows, and podcasts by their favorite religious leaders on top of that. Every day is a new day to refresh their faith in their beliefs.
It’s easy for skeptics to throw all of that aside in our rush to do away with anything that has supernatural/paranormal/religious overtones. Many call it “brainwashing” and scoff about “weak minds.” They say we don’t need such archaic practices and that it is a relief to let it go (especially for the deconverted, who often come from strict religious households and find such things psychologically and emotionally upsetting).
However, my thought about these kinds of practices, and even religion itself, is that they are answering very primal needs. As a skeptic, I do not believe religious rituals were handed down to us by supernatural beings, but rather that we humans created rituals to answer psychological needs that we have. Some of those needs were superstitious (warding off bad luck or explaining natural phenomenon we did not understand at the time) and are arguably unnecessary in this day and age, but often they are much more complex than simple protective tokens.
Weddings, coming-of-age ceremonies, and funeral rites are examples of social/cultural events that we mark with ritual for no other reason than because we want to, and that for many people today are entirely secular. Yet, they serve as important milestone in our lives, with or without religion.
I apply the same logic to motivational material: we created the texts and traditions because we felt a need for them. Some consider that valid enough reason to jettison the stuff, and I have no argument with that, if it is what they need to do. But in the old tradition of “don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater,” it is worth adapting older traditions to modern times and modern needs. I prefer to look at such traditions, especially ones that have clung to human civilization through the millennia, for what we can learn from them.
The “daily devotional” is one such item that I have waited years to see secularized. In a sense, it already has been, in the form of daily quotation calendars and apps, of which I’ve owned more than a few across many broad topics. But they are not quite the same thing, really.
A devotional is a very specific category of book, one that can be reused from year to year, and often has a set format to each entry that include a quote from scripture, a commentary on the quote, and a short prayer for the day based on it. This format is effective and has remained mostly unchanged for centuries.
Personally, I never owned a Christian devotional, although I have owned pagan and new-age ones. As I used them, I tried to strip out the supernaturalism from the entries, which in some cases was easier than in others. I found the Ernest Holmes’ daily devotional to be pretty good, despite the regular references to God and the Great Universe and other new-age spiritualism that did not resonate with me. I could, at least, peel some inspiration out of the entries. But as most skeptics/non-deists know, that continual fight to secularize a spiritual text gets very, very old.
Since no one was writing what I wanted, which was an entirely secular “devotional” that hewed to the traditional format without falling back on religious concepts, I decided to make one.
Of course, it is not actually a devotional, as it is not oriented towards professing devotion and faith towards a god, goddess, or gods. It is designed to inspire and motivate, and with that in mind, I decided to call it an “Inspirational” as a bow towards tradition. I am pretty sure there is no such category of book called “a daily inspirational” but that is what I created.
The underlying assumptions of this project are twofold:
- You are actively engaged in self-improvement;
- You are invested in making the world a better place for all of us.
The entries are divided up according to traditional devotionals, but instead of quoting a sacred text, they begin with a positive statement that falls somewhere between aphorism and proverb:
- Catalyst: The phrase to focus on and be inspired by. Some are old and familiar, some are re-workings of common sayings, and some were invented whole-cloth by me.
- Insight: This is a commentary centered on or inspired by the catalyst, serving as the teaching for the day. The commentary is all mine. I am certainly not the wisest person, nor the smartest, but I tried to make the commentary applicable and useful.
- Reflection: This takes the form of one or two questions for you to contemplate. They take the traditional place of a daily prayer, and help reinforce and internalize the lesson/teaching for the day. Once again, they are all my own creation, and I tried to make them strong and self-affirming in a way similar to the techniques of learned optimism.
There are terms used throughout such as “good,” “bad,” “evil,” and “sacred” that have long, varied history of meanings threaded through philosophy and theology. I have used them here as secular terms relating to emotions or psychological states. For instance, while “good” can be read as referring to moral righteousness (as it is so often used in religion), in The Skeptic’s Inspirational it simply implies that something is of benefit in a concrete way or promotes positive/empowering reactions. When in doubt, assume a definition that fits into your world view and personal philosophies!
As a skeptic, I believe that this life is the only one we get, and so I feel it is incumbent on us as individuals to strive to make not only our own lives better, but to help others along their own paths. We are all in this together, after all!
This is my contribution to that effort, and I hope you find this inspirational a useful tool in dealing with the trials and triumphs of this mortal life.
THERE WILL BE A BOOK!
Coming soon, I will have a book version available both in digital and paperback formats for you to use. Down the road, I plan to create a workbook as well. Stay tuned!