Figmentations

I don’t always believe in Passion.  It teases. For me, it seems to come and go, kind of what I imagine a Bi-Polar or a Manic-Depressive condition to be like. 

It’s easy to be all gung-ho when you are starting something new.  There are no expectations yet. You can only envision things going well.  And, like a budding romance, you can be so blinded by the love that you don’t see flaws that are easily evident to outsiders. Dreams are a tease, too.

You fall in love with a new hobby, and you show your commitment to it by buying up all the books (or whatever other relevant paraphernalia there is) that you can find and you dedicate yourself to that subject completely. And, you keep investing and accumulating. 

After all, it takes 10,000 hours of doing something to become an expert.  So, once you have all the information or the best equipment close at hand, you feel like the power is well within reach. 

And if you read more books, and do more research, or have better equipment, then that puts you in the position of superiority over the “less dedicated” folks, right? They’ll admire you for doing or having something that they do not have.  You’ve put in the hours that someone else hasn’t.  That has value, right?

Still, how easy it is to have everything within reach and then do or achieve nothing meaningful with it.  

Yet, whether passion is fleeting or not, the only way to truly demonstrate passion is in your actions.  Not just by taking actions, but in how you take those actions.  Take all the actions you want, without passion, they are only actions. 

True passion can’t be faked.  Passion shows in your face, in your approach, in your very being. 

The only way to keep passion alive is to feed it.  And, feed it well.  Love what you do and how you do it, without focusing solely on what it will get for you.  Sure you want to achieve success and live a good life following your passions.  Yet, how happy will you be if you ended up sacrificing one for the other.

Believe in passion because it shows.  I would say a big factor to success, and to people wanting success for you, and to people wanting to be a part of your success, is in seeing the passion you have for what you do. That’s what people want to see and want to believe in, because it isn’t seen often enough. 

Passion and Dreams can tease, but they are also what people want to believe in.  Keeping them alive will keep you alive.  While I don’t always believe in passion, I think we need to believe in it because it makes a difference in what we do, how we do it, and ultimately in the outcomes we get.

 Do you believe in passion?
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For a list of all posts in this series go to: Finding Purpose (actual links will be posted as each post becomes live.)