I’ve often asked and have been asked this question, and more often than not without fail, no one really has a great answer. You usually get a
“Well I like to do…” or
“I’m pretty good at…” or even
“People tell me I’m good at…”
Perhaps it’s our apologetic Canadian culture, but no. This is not passion. It doesn’t even seem close to passion for me.
You can often tell passion when you see it. When someone is passionately speaking about something, they do so with unchecked, unbridled emotion. It’s not manufactured, it’s not an act to pull the wool over your eyes—it’s there, they care, and if no one else on Earth did, they’d still care.
Society (at least here in Toronto) is designed to drill passion into the ground. If you’re creative, eccentric—if your way of life does not conform to the way society has defined success, you’re doing something wrong.
When you’re a kid, you have an idea of what you want to be when you grow up, no matter how outlandish it may be.
Throughout school—our formative years—we usually invest so much time into learning things by rote that these dreams and aspirations—which may have been the purest representation of the career path that would give us the most joy—get pushed to the back of our minds. By the time we’ve finished our education, we’ve boxed ourselves into a job that may never have been the right fit for us.
And there goes your passion right out the door.
Let’s even look at how we spend our free time. One of the way I do this right now is through blogging. Yesterday’s post was actually one that I was going to post today, and write one on manners—simply because I’d dubbed Mondays “Manners Mondays”. But Sarah intervened, reminding me that I should only be posting material that I’m passionate about.
And so here I am on Tuesday with a far better post than I might have had on Wednesday.
So if you’re going to do something and do it right, you’ve gotta do it with passion.
So be a Zaigham Zulqernain and be passionate about film.
Or be a German Shible and be passionate about tattoos.
But be passionate. No matter what.
81/365
Thanks for this post Doomz…I really needed to read this today!
No problem, Simone — always glad to be of help 🙂 Hope your evening turned out far better for it!
I’m passionate about social justice and the need for everyone to work together so that Canada can be a country where there are good jobs for all. and when I say I’m passionate about it, I mean I put my money where my mouth is. Love, the girl who actually knows how much a weekly megaphone rental at Long and McQuade’s will set you back (not as much as you’d think).
Gwen, from talking to you, reading your posts and just getting a sense for what you’re all about, I know that this comment is FAR from BS. I’m thinking there are some friends of mine that I should get you to meet — that is, if you don’t know them already…