Passion

passion – a strong barely uncontrollable emotion

“Find what it is your life career’s going to be and learn to do it well.” – Joseph Campbell

Passion in life is a beautiful thing to hold, but it has to be earned. It isn’t always as simple or as easy as one might like. The point of passion is that it is not there for a fleeting moment, but that we can be sure in ourselves that it points to something bigger, something more, within us. A passion that lasts usually has to be cultivated, nurtured and enjoyed before it becomes so. This is the kind of passion that gets us through life.

For some us it becomes our whole life – passion is what we do, what we are and what we breathe – encapsulating our family life, careers, our sense of vocation and our way of being with others.

Passion is also an attitude. Even in relation to how we look at something like a side-job, or those (at times) boring chores! Passion can be felt at the most mundane of tasks. I once came across someone who said that if you cannot take pride in the smallest of your jobs, then how can you feel pride and passion for the career that you so truly desire? I could resonate with this, as at the time I was in a part-time retail assistant post and I felt really happy and enthusiastic going in to my shifts, and this was a job of convenience and had nothing to do with my studies but it still engaged me and inspired me. In the end I believe that if we cannot approach such jobs or circumstances in life with this attitude then we end up falling short, we do ourselves a disservice. I also think that when the job (per modo di dire) doesn’t give you that feeling anymore, or that enthusiasm wanes off then it’s time to rethink it or move on.

To earn passion, to recognise it within us, is to put ourselves wholeheartedly to the task. The energy it takes to do this is the same energy it takes to live our life. Thus it is a decision. The notion of trying something out and giving oneself the time to explore it and simply be in the moment is what Yeats described as “passion” too.

Much of being and living in passion, is listening to our consciousness. Many of us are swayed away from our callings because the money isn’t in them, we think or are persuaded that we could and should be architects, lawyers, doctors and so on. By the time you’re up the ladder and you’re at the top you start to realize it’s against the wrong wall. This is what Joseph Campbell means by the decision to follow your bliss. Sometimes we do suffer when we follow our bliss; but it’s a very different struggle to when the path chosen is full of suffering and pain, it’s rough and hard most of the time, then it’s definitely the wrong path. Your true path in life in general, is challenging, transformative but also fulfilling and allows you to flourish.

In Sanskrit they have an idea that transcendence is transcendent – sat-cit-ãnanda; where sat is being, cit is consciousness and ãnanda is bliss.

So, if you follow it, all will be alright.