(This is installment #2 of Lessons From The Passionist: How To Turn Passion Into Purpose To Create Greater Meaning and Joy in Your Life. Enjoy!)
Why Passion?
Why passion? Why is passion a subject important enough for me to spend countless hours writing an entire book about? Because nothing happens without it. Passion creates action. No meaningful endeavor ever got off the ground without someone having and sharing passion. No disease was ever cured without passion. No life changing invention, like the computer or phone on which you are reading this right now, ever came to life without passion. No championship was ever won without passion. Passion is what drives people to do things. Big things. Meaningful things. The things that define and give purpose to life. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” And enthusiasm is a major component of passion.
Why write a book that helps people find and harness their passion? Because in many cases, people have a hard time nailing down exactly what it is that stirs them, that makes them tick and gives their lives a sense of purpose and energy. I meet many young people who are struggling to figure out what to do with their lives. They are paralyzed by indecision or fear, or both. Some people are lucky – their passion finds them. Others are even luckier – their passion not only finds them, but provides an enjoyable career and a substantial income. For those people, and I feel fortunate to be among them, work never really feels like work. For most of my career, I would have done my job for free. That’s how much I’ve enjoyed and gotten real satisfaction from all of my “jobs”.
This book is for people seeking their passion and who have a desire to build their life around it in some way. It’s for all the people who want to fulfill their purpose and maximize their potential, rather than just let the days of their lives just pass on by (and they will pass in the blink of an eye if we let them) without yielding any sustainable, lasting satisfaction. It’s for the people who don’t want to waste a single one of their roughly 29,200 days on earth (that’s how many days we get if we live to be eighty years-old). Because even the best education and all the talent and skill in the world will not yield much in the way of life fulfillment if not combined with the enthusiasm and drive created by passion.
Passion is the essence of life. Without passion, life is just a sequence of days that begins at our birth and ends at our death. How effectively we capitalize of the days we are alive – how much satisfaction we gain, how many emotions we experience, how many sunsets we appreciate, how many meals we savor during our lifetime, how many people we embrace with joy -ultimately depends on our level of passion.
U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt, a leader full of passion, is famous for a quote that is a testament to passion’s importance in people’s lives
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Wow, strong language. Teddy didn’t mince words. “His place will never be with those cold and timid souls…” – who wants to hang out with those people? Passionate people live in the arena. The arena of life. And they infect all other people with whom they cross paths with their passion. Wouldn’t it be great to be one of those people?
Our ability to touch other people’s lives in meaningful ways is dependent on passion. People feed off each other’s energy, and people with passion give off an amazing energy that lifts everyone around them, and inspires other people to activate their own passion. I call this the “chain of passion”. Imagine a world full of people building a chain of passion. What great things we would achieve, what problems we would solve and what joy we would all experience.
Unfortunately, very few people know how to harness their own passion, let alone unleash it in others. This book was written to help people navigate the road to finding, developing, harnessing and sharing their passion with the world.
I have numerous passions that I have actively pursued for most of my life. I love sports, business, travel, food, learning, beaches, wine, rum, exercise, people, yoga, fashion, cars, art, philosophy…it’s a big list that has grown over time. These are not just passing interests. All of my passions have been an integral part of my life and/or business in some way for decades. They have contributed to a fascinating life journey I share with everyone I meet in some way.
I describe my life as “purposely never dull,” and have tried to live a life perhaps best described in the words of Rudyard Kipling in his famous poem If (a copy of which I was given by my father as a young boy).
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs, and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you’
But make allowance for their doubting, too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies.
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good nor talk too wise;
If you can dream and not make dreams your master,
If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet triumph and disaster,
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings,
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone…
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a man*
my son!
(*and “woman”, for my female readers)
These powerful words Kipling wrote are about a life filled with and fueled by passion. I’ve been driven by passion ever since I can remember. People ask me all the time, “Were you born like that?” For most of my adult life, I have wondered the same thing. What made me, and other people like me, this way? So, I decided to add another passion to my list: writing this book. It’s an exploration and dissection of passion, and an effort to help other people figure out how to harness its power in their own lives. Buckle up. While you can’t beat a passion fueled life, expect a few bumps along the way.
Special thanks to all the people who have taught me and tolerated me over the years. I hope I have given you as much as you have given me. This book is dedicated to you.
Let passion create your world!
Robert
Recent Comments