Passion Doesn’t Come From Business-Daily Meditation 3.20.23

Today’s quotation:

Passion doesn’t come from business or books or even a connection with another person.  It is a connection to your life force, the world around you, and the spirit that connects us all.  You are the source.  Books, work, music, people, and sunsets provide sparks, but only you can light the fire.-Jennifer James
Success Is the Quality of Your Journey

Today’s Meditation:

When we do things with passion, things are better because we put more of ourselves into them.  Unfortunately, we’ve come to think of passion as exclusively sexual or an extreme way of doing things–the person who’s loudly playing a game and reacting in extreme ways to what happens is said to be “passionate,” while the quiet person playing the same game may be playing more passionately, but just not making a show of it.  Passion does not equal loud or expressive–passion is giving ourselves to our endeavor as well as we can.

I’m passionate about teaching, but one could never tell that by looking at me.  I’m not outgoing, and I don’t perform for my students–but I take plenty of time to prepare, and I make sure that I know what’s effective and what’s not effective so that when I get into the classroom, I know that I’ll be helping my students.  And being loud and trying to perform for them works only for a few students, not for all of them, so I don’t adopt that method.  Besides, it doesn’t fit who I am, so I’d lie to my students if I adopted that method.

Passion isn’t always visible in the passionate person, but it is visible in finished results.  A love for what we’re doing permeates all that we do because we genuinely want to be doing what we’re doing, and we love it.  Whether it’s parenting, building boats, washing dishes, writing, painting, or even cleaning the house, doing something with passion helps the result and allows us to enjoy the process much, much more. 

As I grow older, I do fewer and fewer things that I’m not passionate about and more and more that I am.  Passion gives me that connection to life, living, and me; living with that connection is an extraordinary way to live.  Sometimes when I have to do something that I’m not passionate about, I ask myself, “How can I do this in the best way possible?” that question helps me to find the passion necessary to do an exceptional job and to help me to enjoy the process.

Questions to consider:

Why have we come to equate passionate actions with loud and showy actions?

What things are you passionate about?  How often do you do them?

How might you infuse passion into tasks that aren’t necessarily passion-inspiring?

For further thought:

Many of us are afraid to follow our passions and pursue what we want most because it means taking risks and facing failure.  But to pursue your passion with all your heart and soul is success in itself.  The greatest failure in the world is to have never really tried.-Robyn Allan

If you missed our last Daily Meditation it is right here.