He asked me, “Are you following your passion?” My simultaneous rush to respond is coupled to a hesitance to respond because people ask this question because its fashionable and en vogue. Everyone is following their passion, right? As I drove the five hours home yesterday I contemplated the question; I ponder this concept often, even without the query. This morning I woke with a technical correction. You cannot and should not FOLLOW your passion. If what you seek is perpetually dangling ahead like a rabbit before a greyhound, then you will never LIVE you passion. One of amazing and magical occurrences of the Internet is making new friends of similar or disparate minds. One of those friends is Scott Trudo who writes at Live Your Passion. Before meeting him, I had begun my own journey to better articulate this concept. How to live with intention and purpose, how to find relevance and connection, how to feel significant were questions – big questions – I felt compelled to answer. Living with passion is not a kumbayah mantra that promises glaze-eyed happiness. No one would call the Passion of Christ a happy time yet the outcome and promise of living through all that suffering and pain is eternal happiness.
So the answer is yes. I am living my passion. Some days, I am standing still simply observing. Other days I am sprinting forward by leaps and bounds. My passion is my faith, my desire to keep learning, sensuality in all its manifestations, nature and the awesome mystery of it and intimacy. Intimacy, the ability to connect to other people, other souls with out guarding or defensiveness, to be real and exposed, to trust (myself and others) is the greatest challenge. So much of modern life lacks intimacy, lacks honesty, lacks authenticity. Our food is fake by percentages, our connections are institutionalized, our learning is standardized and quantified, sensuality seems to be restricted to food consumption or consumption in general. You can live your passion almost anywhere.
I must admit that one of my bucket list items is to build a home: design it, plan it, build it and occupy it. I have had other dreams, other bucket items, but I had them before I know bucket lists existed. I wanted to be a doctor. No….I wanted to be a student and learn as much as I could, learn the hardest stuff ever. I wanted a brain that absorbed and condensed knowledge. I still love learning, exploring intellectually, discourse and dialogue, making discoveries. Becoming a doctor seemed like the hardest thing I could every make my brain do. I wanted to write. Originally, my college acceptance letters came for the School of Journalism and only later, the College of Liberal Arts (many of those Liberal Arts departments have ceased to exist). I am working on the writing thing now. The writing was a part of a larger desire to be creative. I am a creative soul: crafty and creative. I am creative in what I do and HOW I do things. I am uncommon and a bit unorthodox. My kids call it weird. I’m weird.
Living my passion ultimately means facing or walking through my fears. Living my passion is not to be confused with reckless disregard. Living my passion means I am present, in the moment, in the now.
