"The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
“Life without passion would be a dull wasteland of neutrality, cut off and isolated from the richness of life itself.”
The first quote is from Mitch Albom, a best-selling author, and the second is from Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and author. So many people have opinions on passion and its part in our lives, and that’s because it really does have a major impact on most of our existences.
Passion can motivate people to keep on going on in their lives because it gives a purpose for living and something to focus on throughout life.
Passion can be found in our love lives, our careers and our personal lives. For example, a woman might be passionate about her partner in a relationship, her career in marine biology and her personal hobby of reading. If she’s a parent, she might also be passionate about raising her child, and if she’s religious, her passion might be serving God. Her life could include all of these or only one of these.
In my own life, I can identify my passions of writing, psychology, love and relationships, and animals. I have other interests, but those areas are what I feel strongly about and give me the most happiness when I accomplish goals in those areas.
Arthur Aron, a psychologist at Stony Brook University, said passion is a “focused, intense desire to achieve some outcome, some goal, or to be engaged in something.”
His work focuses on passion in relationships.
“In an ongoing relationship, the way they can create more passion is to do things together with their partner that are challenging, novel, exciting,” Aron said.
In one experiment, long-term couples spent an hour and a half each week doing something ‘new and challenging versus doing something enjoyable but that is sort of mundane, that they do regularly,” he said.
“It was a big difference over ten weeks in the passion they felt for their partner,” Aron said.
Passion can be picked up through a brain scanner as well because there is activation in the dopamine system, he said. When people look at pictures of their partners, this activation can be observed, for example.
“It’s the system that responds when people take cocaine, for example, or when they are expecting to win a large amount of money,” Aron said. “We seem to have that response and that focused attention.”
When you think of passion, you wouldn’t automatically think of addiction, though the two areas are related.
“You can associate passion both with craving for something and with getting something,” Aron said. “We see both kinds of responses in addiction.”
Uncontrolled passion can sometimes have some negative side effects, he said.
“Passion could have health un-benefits if you’re passionately interested in something and you let your health and everything else go,” Aron said.
In general, passion could create success but could also distract people from their health or make their lives narrow, he said.
However, overall happiness and health could be linked to passion.
“If things are going well in one’s life, if one is happy in their relationship and happy in other domains, one’s health is better,” he said. “One is more resilient to stress, one is less likely to get sick. In that sense, the indirect effects of passion are probably very good for you.”
My suggestions for finding passion and living a life with passion are:
1) Try a variety of activities. If you live in a shell, you won’t be able to find out what your passion is. Try something you’re unsure of or never make time for and discover if that’s what you love and have passion for.
2) Read the newspaper (online or print), magazines and books. Some topic might pique your interest and lead to a future passion.
3) Socialize. You might found out your passion by talking to others about what they’re interested in and by participating in activities with others.
4) Find out what your skills are and what comes naturally to you through all the above and by just living in general. Passion doesn’t always involve what you’re good at – sometimes it’s something you have to work at – but it’s only to your benefit to cover all bases.
5) Focus on an area of your life, improve it and decide to dedicate resources. If you find out you’re not into it, then don’t push it anymore and look for a different possible passion.
6) Once you find your passion, stick with it and find others who have that passion and will support you. Consider new friends if those you have don’t support you in your passion.
7) If you find you’re drifting away from an already existent passion, find out why. Is there an inner conflict, depression, lack of interest or changing interests? Fix your problems and maybe move on to another passion.
8) Give into your passion, but know your limits. Don’t neglect other important areas of your life, like friends, family and health, because you’re too into your passion.
Martha Beck, a life coach and author, said in an article that in order to find your passion, you need to get over fatigue, fear and the feeling that a certain passion is forbidden.
I know from personal experience that fatigue and depression can hinder the search and fulfillment of passion. For example, depression itself can cause fatigue and lack of motivation, which makes it difficult to contribute to a career you have passion for. Depression can limit the areas that you have passion for, since energy needs to be conserved, and passion takes a lot of time and energy.
What are you passionate about? Have you stuck to your passion? How? Any challenges along the way?
Sources:
http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/How-to-Find-Your-Passion-Martha-Beck/1