Finding the passion within....
“The idea is to keep your corporate gig and still have time to pursue your passion,” a quote by John A. Challenger president of an outplacement firm Challenger, Gray &Christmas.
This quote came from an article in a magazine called "The Week" and it got me thinking about my own kids and what passions they might have. What are they excited about?
It occurred to me that before one can claim a passion they first have to be able to recognize the feeling. What might that feeling feel like? I am sure it is different for everybody but with some commonalities. We have phrases for it like “being in the zone”. Perhaps it felt like peace and quiet or maybe you could not get enough of it or did time ceased to exist? Did it feel so good that you felt one with everything?
If you have been there how you would describe it?
How will our children develop a passion for something? I have always been baffled and a bit envious of those who seemed to know right from the start what excited them and thus what they were going to be when they grew up. For the rest of us we must learn to feel it. In order to learn it we must have time to process the feeling for ourselves not for someone else, our parents, our spouse, our boss, but rather just for us.
In our effort to succeed we sometimes push ourselves and our children to do more and more without taking the time to consider if this activity is nourishing our well being.
If we asked that same question of our children and they felt they could answer honestly, for themselves what might they say? This does not mean to suggest that we stop encouraging our children and even at times push them hard to try new things. Rather, that we take the time to let them experience the feeling of what they are doing.
We need to take some of our cues from what they are saying and how they are reacting. We must at some point ask are they being nourished or are we. I know that when I do an activity and it awakens the spirit within, I have achieved true passion.
