Power to the Passion...or Not?
Passion is ballyhooed everywhere. If you open a book, Twitter, FB, Instragram or even your grandma's favorite magazine publication - someone is likely talking about passion and hashtagging it (and I probably will too).
There are 7 + 3 steps to finding your passion and 11 more to follow it, sometimes with a concealed or blatant message of, "A life lived without passion is not worth living" (or something of that sort).
So...what about passion?
Do *you* have it?
Do you feel it?
Do you have fleeting glimpses of it and get a sense of what it is when you search Google images?
Do you want it?
Do you think you should have it?
Do you you think less of yourself if you don't have it?
Are you peeved with those who do?
Do you even know what it is?
Is Passion overused, overrated and oversold?
Is it the key to everything you want?
Are you so-over-it?
If you want passion you can have it, but it's helpful to understand how it becomes.
Passion is sustained attention on a subject in a way that feels good.
Given that most of us aren't all that disciplined at focusing in a way that sustains the good feeling - we're all over the place on most subjects and with how we feel about it - it's not surprising that not everyone is passionate.
You won't find passion if you have thoughts that go from feeling-good-to-bad, good-to-bad, good-to-bad.
To sustain anything, you have to move it consistently in one direction, otherwise, you're not allowing yourself the velocity it takes to become passionate about it.
Many of us are slovenly that way.
The break in pace occurs with:
"Yes-buts"...
"Yes, but I've never done it", (which you follow up with reasons why you likely can't).
"Yes, but it's hard", (which you affirm with your evidence of how hard it was for your ancestors and theirs, or how hard it's been for you so far).
"Yes, but it's not likely possible", (which you provide evidence to back that "fact" up).
"Yes, but it's different for me in this way..." (fill in the blank).
"Yes, I like it in these ways, but I don't like it in these other ways..."
You smash it with your doubts.
You never let it gain any traction with your negative "what-if's".
You halt it as you focus on the positives as well as the perceived negatives.
Imagine yourself driving a car. Put one foot on the gas pedal and keep it there. Are you going faster?
Now imagine yourself driving the same car with your foot on the gas pedal as you simultaneously have the other foot on the brake pedal. You wouldn't get very far too-fast-so-soon.
That's similar to what you do when you introduce contradictions (as noted above).
What you don't want moves you in a different direction to what you do want.
Doubt swerves you opposite to believing.
Negative aspects don't align with the positive aspects.
Attention to what's in your way fogs the clear lane.
Justifications of why you can't have what you want puts debris on the track.
Your path becomes congested with incessant observation of what-is as if where-you-are is where you'll forever be.
You can't ask yourself to feel passionate about something if you haven't taken the time to feel it into place any more than you'd expect to go faster if you had your foot on the gas and the brake pedal at the same time.
You're not going to gain a lot of velocity that way.
Passion is speed allowed to build without changing direction.
Passion is velocity in one direction without interruption.
There is power in passion, just like there's power in speed.
Live a life filled with passion if that's what you want for yourself.
Not feeling passion doesn't mean you're off-course...
You can make your way to passion if you understand how to get there.