Marc on Passion

Better late than never, so they say.

I've been putting this off, trying to balance what I realized was my very cynical view of passion. So I'll start there. I think it's become a buzzword and has lost its original meaning - just another two-cent word that gets tossed around a lot. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I'll take this in a little bit of a different direction.

Usually conversations about passion revolve around either having it or not having it, and I don't think that's how passion works. I think it waxes and wanes; it's not necessarily there ALL the time or an apparent lack of it indicates that it's non-existent in someone. Hear me out on this one: I think people who are at the very top end of their professions have it mostly "on" all the time. It doesn't wane and that's why they are what they are. But for the more average person, passions come and go. For example, there are a lot of people passionate about golf right around the time that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are making charges for another green jacket, but come October the word "golf" hasn't escaped their lips for five months. On a more personal note, I am passionate about writing in general; I love to write. But I will be the first to tell you that there are stretches of time (sometimes weeks) when I just don't feel like plunking out anything on the keyboard. Other times I sit down and I don't know whether to write a blog, write some lyrics, or write a short story. I think professionals are the ones that can push through the times when they aren't "feeling it".

I think passion is given too much weight as far as a sort of qualification for work. After all, how do you measure it? Again, I'm speaking from the Navy perspective, but I know for a fact that in the military we don't give enough credit to the people that work hard, put in the time, and do their job well even if they don't have passion for what their doing. When we press the "passion principle" so hard, people feel somehow lesser qualified or less of an employee because they don't jump out of bed in the morning and skip breakfast to get to work. Every self-help book and article I've ever read tells me to "find something I'm passionate about and do it". But again, how do I know what I'm passionate about? How do I measure something on the passion scale? As a side note (you guys know this rant) it's just another contributing factor to the fattening of America, especially kids. If you're 10 and you just want to play baseball for a couple of hours a week, you can't do it. You either have to spend $200 on the uniforms, go to practice three times a week and travel to a game once or twice a week or you're not "committed" to the sport and you get spit out. There are no athletics without passion. But I say, who cares? I love to play tennis but I haven't played in about two years. I'm love being a Chief Petty Officer but I go home from work and often work doesn't cross my mind until I'm in the car on the way back the next day.

I guess what I'm wondering is whether or not we have to have passions in life. I'm all over the place. I've hardly stuck with anything for a long period of time in my adult life. I meddle in cycling, swimming, rapping, birdwatching, languages, theology, writing, and a million other things. I'm not sure I'm passionate about any of them.