Hello Passion? Where are you?

It’s funny how we can be so passionate about something we do, and then someone says something and we suddenly become so self-conscious about what we love doing that we stop doing it.

This happened to me. I loved writing so much. I still do. But I loved writing every single day, creating posts for this blog, sharing my thoughts and my heart. For a long time I did it every day without missing a single day.

And then…

Someone made a comment about me being self-indulgent. And I allowed it to fester in my brain. And suddenly, the thing I loved to do became something I felt I needed to edit so much that the passion slipped away.

Let’s be clear, it is not the person’s fault that I stopped, or that I felt I needed to edit to the point that I felt I could only write factually, without emotion, without sharing my personal story. I was the one who allowed that. I was the one who stopped sharing. Let me also be clear that I love the work I do. And the people I surround myself with. It is not that I don’t have any joy in my life. I just want to find and follow my passion again.

Nelson Mandela said “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less that the one you are capable of living.”

I don’t want to play small anymore. I am capable of living a big, bold, beautiful life, and I am not. And it starts with re-kindling the passion I had for writing every day.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been faced with the reality that life goes by quickly, and we are further along than we think. We lost our grandmother earlier this month and yesterday my father had major surgery. My grandmother was 93 and lived a life full of love and passion for the things that were meaningful to her. My father is, in my mind, still a young man with a lot of life left before him. I want to live my life, whether long or short, with passion and joy, doing the things I believe are life-affirming and meaningful.

As I look back over the past couple of years, I feel like the pandemic let me try some new things, but also kept me from really spreading my wings and flying. And as I look ahead to a world that is still cautious, I think of all the things we have learned about how we can live differently. This is an exciting opportunity, a time to dream and live out our dreams. A time to evaluate what should stay and what should be let go.

Am I alone in feeling like the passion I once had, left for a while. And now I want to re-explore it? What are you passionate about these days and how can we all find ways to live a life that is as big as we are capable of living?