What Inspires You? Guest Post VII: Nisha Chittal
Nisha enthusiastically reached out to my via Twitter about her interest in this series and I am equally as excited about having her here on my blog. Her writing style is sharp and well-versed as she is an associate editor at CitizenJanePolitics, writes her own blog, interns at ReadWriteWeb and is still in college! So here comes Nisha, full of inspirational force, lucky number seven:
Nisha Chittal
Bio: I live, most of the time, in Champaign, IL. I am graduating from the University of Illinois in May 2009 with a BA in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies. On my blog, Politicoholic, I write about the things I’m passionate about: politics (duh), current events, social issues, technology and gov 2.0 issues, and sometimes just about my crazy life.
As someone who thoroughly enjoys writing, I love words. I love playing around with words and I believe that the right words at the right time can make a huge impact. I actually enjoy copyediting (I know, weird. But somehow I end up editing friends’ papers all the time and kind of love it). So naturally it fits that when I sat down to think of what inspires me, the first thing I thought of was not necessarily a person or an object, but a quote — a series of words strung together.
It’s one that really speaks to me, and is probably my all-time favorite quote. It describes, using the perfect words, exactly how I want to live my life – if it weren’t so long I’d call it my motto. But it’s not short enough for that since it’s three paragraphs long. Three perfect paragraphs though! I love it so much I blew it up, printed it out, and tacked it up on my bedroom wall so I can see it everyday or whenever I need motivation. Reading this quote reminds me of the things I aspire to do and the people I aspire to be like. When I’m freaking out about little things, it’s a good reminder of the big picture in life and the larger things I’m striving towards.
I spent my high school years in a boring suburb feeling like I was so restricted. And I was — I made safe decisions and did safe things. But as anyone who reads my blog knows, I have a strong dislike for anything “safe” or “stable.” I like risk. I like doing things that other people consider crazy, and things that most people would not normally do. Some of these decisions have been considered crazy, but I have an enormous amount of blind faith that no matter what crazy decision I make (like moving to Cambodia), everything will work out the way it’s supposed to in the end.
