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Prompt #17: It’s easy to be passionate about travel, but does that passion permeate the rest of your life? Do you live and work with passion? Why or why not?
“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life.” –Federico Fellini
Passion. Purpose. Living consciously. Ten years ago, ‘passionate’ is probably not the first word you would have picked to describe me. I had interests, I enjoyed my life. I had fun. But I didn’t give much thought to living ‘consciously’.
Rewind 12 more years, and this is a book my mom bought me, about my “passion”…
Yes, growing up, I had a bit of a problem with my temper. Ok, I still do. I’m stubborn. Details matter to me. I’m impatient. Design matters to me. Efficiency matters to me. Independence matters to me. I’ve been known to mind vomit.
Fast forward 17 years, and I was sitting in one of my one-on-one meetings with my adviser for my Masters program. She told me several things that I tried to shrug off, but knew were true — essentially that faking it isn’t my forte and that I need to find something that I’m passionate about. That I needed a cause. (She also wore wooden bead necklaces and drove a Prius so I chalked a bit of her advice up to… well her being a touchy-feely hippie I guess?). I realized she was right though when she told me “you need to crank it up a notch, you’re not giving [it] your all, you’re holding back.” Aaah… kumbaya.
Blogging helped me find my passion.
It gave me a place to document and explore my interests and realize trends in what makes me happy. It’s my little sandbox for ideas and projects, it’s my land of serial hobbyism, a place to verbalize my goals, which eventually helped me to make the decision to quit my job for a career break.
These days, I have a job that is a mix of work + play. Being in an industry that I’m passionate about makes work 100x more rewarding and fun. I’m one of those sick people that likes to work. I really like working. Even when I was in an industry I had zero passion for, I still enjoyed my work, I just enjoyed a different aspect – doing good work, and improving things. While I might have experienced the Sunday Night Dreads quite a bit, I still loved working and doing a good job and kicking ass. So it took me a while to realize that I needed a change. And for that, I thank travel.
Oh and these days my “God, I need to talk to you about my bad temper” book of choice is The Four Agreements— which is based on four phrases:
- Be Impeccable With Your Words
- Don’t Take Anything Personally
- Don’t Make Assumptions
- Always Do Your Best
I like that “Always Do Your Best” is the last one, because I mess one of the first three up every day.
Do you work AND play with passion?
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