Finding Your Passion

Who are the luckiest people in the world?  I'm sure there are many answers to this, some psychological, some spiritual, and some material.

Let me make one suggestion.  They are the people who have found a passion in life.  They have found a source of energy that comes from deep within.  Their work is not just a job.  It is a calling.

Or it may not be their work.  It may be their hobby that is their passion. 

What is a passion?  It is something which energizes us as we think about it and pursue it.  It feels like more than passing time.  It provides pleasure, but it is more than pleasure.

It can perhaps be thought of as something which produces a feeling of flow.  (See Wikipedia article  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

We need to help our children find their passion in life.  One way we can do this is to find our own passion.  We can show them by our actions that there is something to be enthused about in life.

Of course, there are many things which can get in the way of this, such as stress, depression, severe life disappointments, and so on.  And I don't want to disparage anyone who doesn't have this feeling.   There may be very good reasons that they don't have it. 

But I encourage all of my patients to look for what is most important and most exciting to them and follow that vision.  I believe that we are all here for a reason.  We need to discover what that is, and if we do, then we are likely to find that it is not just a job but a passion.