Photo by TheDreamSky
I know it is popular to encourage people to find their passion…to go after it. Live it. Be it. It’s a dreamy and fiery word. It’s sexy. It seems like the key to kingdom of success. If only we could find what we are passionate about…
And yet, I’m not interested in passion. I don’t cultivate or search for it. It is not a motivator in my life. I have no desire to work with passionate people. It is not what I am about.
I know that may seem downright blasphemous to some. To those who choose passion as the driving force in their life. To those seeking the thing that will make their heart go pitter pat. Passion can feel good. Wonderful. A dizzying drunkenness from the power of its energy. It’s combustable, which is great for liftoff. But, lacking for most everything else.
Passion, the word, is derived from the latin for suffering. Once upon a time that is what it meant…to suffer. When we stay in a passionate place, we are often in a place of suffering. Struggle. Trying hard to get the thing, the belief, the business, the love to stick. Stay. Work. We’ve all talked to those passionate folks, whose voices are raised. Hands flailing. Trying to get you to feel as they do. You give a curious look, and you get back, “What? I’m not angry. Just passionate.” Perhaps so. And still, that sensation is not one of pleasure.
Beyond the fire, is a darker side. A side that pushes. Burns. And leaves the beholder with an emptiness that is deeply unsatisfying. From the lack, action is taken to create. From the lack there can be a simmering rage with its sights set on fixing. Passion has a deep attachment to its outcome. It aches when things don’t turn out as planned. It hurts as people don’t quite get it. And it steals it’s own power as time goes on.
I know passion. I have felt it deeply. I was passionate at my last job. I worked as a therapist in a group home for teenage girls. I loved them. I rooted for them. And I wanted for them in a mighty way. I struggled to give them what they wanted. What I thought they deserved. I suffered at the perceived injustices. I suffered through the no’s that shoved themselves in my face. I suffered to help them. And for all that, nothing changed. They didn’t need me to suffer. They needed me to love. To be full of life. To see the possibilities and offer them a road map. They needed more than my fire. They needed me.
Nothing needs your suffering. Your commitment to suffering only adds to the sum total of it in the world. What is needed is your enthusiasm. Enthusiasm stems from the greek for to be inspired by god. It is an experience of being filled with your purpose. Your soul. You. Enthusiasm does not push and burn. It loves. It nourishes. It lasts.
So instead of searching for your passion, I invite you to find your enthusiasm. For yourself. For life. For that which you want to create. It feels light. Sweet. Magnificent. It feels right.
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