What is your passion?
A good friend asked me that yesterday, as we chatted about life and what was next. I thought about the question while running later in the evening. No clear answer came. Internally, I felt a little panic rise, thinking, I need to get this figured out.
When I was younger, I was passionate about many things: IPAs, mountain biking, veganism, flat bill hats, you name it. I picked passion off the tree.
A couple of things stand out about that era. For one, I was young, and all that stuff was new. For two, the foundations of my work lined up with who I was. It’s easier to be interested, investigate those interests, and put in the sweat equity to build them into passions, when you love what you do on a day-to-day basis. I’ve come to believe that the quality of your time spent at work greatly underscores everything that occurs outside work. The work-life membrane is permeable.
Medicine, in the words of a mentor, can cause you to “…lose a lot; it’s the ones who realize what they lost that can get it back”. Let’s go ahead and loop all of life into that advice. Shit happens. Life gets heavier sometimes. We experience levels of stress and responsibility we’re not prepared for, and that comes at a cost.
Monday’s article, Fractured Living: The Cost of Taking the Road More Traveled examined the undercurrents of my life as I compromised my dreams. What happened when I lost meaningful work, how I lost myself (and my passions), and how I’m getting the ground beneath my feet back (and feeling passionate again).
Feeling a little wiped after Monday’s heavier report, in Thursday’s article I tried to ride the same angle from a different vantage point: the bar. It’s incredible how much fun I used to have meeting people when I liked my job. In The Best BS Detector Experience Can Buy: The Bar Introduction Test , I explore a recent revolution back to enjoying the question, “So, what do you do?”
I’m not so sure passion is bestowed. I believe it’s worked. It’s a process. And it compounds. But not all things worked, processed, or compounded turn into passions. So what gives?
We give it the magic. If we want that thing, it has a chance to become a passion. Passion is a byproduct.
To wanting things again,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD