I am passionate about helping others live passionate lives, or as I call it, living fully alive. At one time, my passion was to be a world class drummer. All along it’s been to be a world class husband and father (a most difficult goal I might add), which means that world class drummer was often bested by a passion to merely play enough to pay the bills.
And there were times when there was no passion. Not only was there no passion to do anything, there were times of no passion to figure out a passion. In all those times, I didn’t give much thought to passion, I simply sought to move forward somehow or another. When I heard or read about passion it stirred something in my heart, but I always felt stumped as to what to do about it. I suspect I’m not alone. And as the idea of “pursuing your passions” has become more and more popular, there’s pressure upon everyone to figure it out, but not much guidance as to how.
Not surprisingly, a post from the Pursue the Passion blog has the answer: stumbling, dissatisfaction and courage. Brett Farmiloe tells an inspiring story that has led him from the all too common path of choosing a career based on advice to touring the country in an RV.
Brett stumbled into accounting, which led to school, interviewing for jobs, taking a summer to tour the country, going to work at a firm and getting pampered. All along, however, he experienced a growing dissatisfaction and frustration with his world – work especially. And then came courage:
“I made the decision that it was now or never for me. It was time to quit the job I despised.”
And so he did. Leaving certain security behind to pursue a dream of living on the road, interviewing successful people and watching ball games. Go read the rest and be inspired.
Be inspired that there is no great mystery to finding your passion and living fully alive. You can’t know what you are to do without DOING something. So always be doing, but along the way, look for life’s feedback and pay attention to it. Take the feedback seriously and run it across your core beliefs and then across your core desires. Not the desires for cars and houses (though those are important), but the desires for the lasting things like family, relationships and building memories.
Lastly, run these all across you – the real and complete you. Because the only reason too live a passionate life is to be the best you you can be.
