Friday, October 8, 2010

Passion

I have a friend, in her late fifties, who has recently stumbled upon the conundrum of passion. Realizing that while there are many things she excels at, and much she enjoys doing, there is nothing that she could drop everything to pursue full time. She has a career, which blossomed out of a job, which she does not love.

I have read quite a few life-hacking books that teach you how to maximize your results and enjoy life, essentially. They all explain how to make a living off of your passion. However, nobody has yet told me how to find my passion in the first place. A few of them suggest exercises, such as “make a list of everything you have ever been good at or enjoyed doing in your life, including when you were a child”, or “think about what you would do if you could do anything in the world”. Neither is helpful. I too am still passionless.

Or am I? How can I find my passion if I am still unclear as to what it is. I am told that passion is the one thing you would do above all else. Well, that makes those tips above even more redundant – how can I find the one thing I would do above all else if the way to find it is to think of that thing? Circular logic, this. Must I be talented at my passion? Is it truly a passion if I cannot recognize it? I am also told that it is the one activity that makes you happiest when doing it. Well, then I must not need to be very good at it as most things I really enjoy doing I am not that skilled at. So how am I supposed to make money off of doing something I am not very good at?

What’s the importance of finding your passion anyway? Why is it so heartbreaking that, at fifty-something, my friend cannot recognize hers? Perhaps we feel true belonging not to a loved one or any result, but to the activity of passion. We are truly one with ourselves when exercising this activity, when performing in these great strides of humanity.

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