Dear Priscilla:

“I.. feel a void.. like I am capable of so much more and want to make a difference in the world in some way but I feel like I don’t know where to begin?”-

– If you want to, you can answer the following two questions, and after we communicate for a while, maybe you will figure out where to begin:

1. While growing up, were your parents content with their lives and were they content with you being in their lives?

2. If your parents were not content, were you able to make a difference in their lives, and if so, what difference did you make?

anita

Dear Priscilla:

You are welcome. As a child it was your mother that was at home with you much of the time, being “the nurturer”, while your father worked many hours outside the home. Let’s focus on your mother then: you wrote that she was not content with her life and that she was not content with her husband (your father).

Do you remember being a child and noticing that she was not content, feeling bad about her not being content or happy?

If you do, do you remember the ways you tried to make her content/ happy?

anita

Hi Priscilla

What is Passion? How do we know it when we have it?  Is it possible to passionate about your job, relationship, hobby….  one moment and the next not so much? Yes? Why are some people better at being/showing passion then others. Is Passion a emotion, frame of mind, or way of being?

I’ll be frank.  I very much dislike the whole Passion -Purpose movement. Even the most Passionate purpose driven people I know feel like their faking it. Some terrified that if they look to deep they won’t like what they see. Who am I if its not what I do and can’t do that with “Passion”?  Oh the suffering we create for ourselves in  this search of validated measurement passion.

The problem I think is that humans are terrible at measuring things like Passion and Purpose.   How often do we measure and label something  like passion and happiness where the act of measuring makes it disappear. Sadly the same is not the same for measuring things like sadness or anger were the act of measuring tends to feed the experience.  That might suggest, as you hint at, that Passion is more of a mind set, a way of Being more so then a doing.

A parable about the three bricklayers. A traveler came upon three men working. He asked the first man what he was doing and the man said he was laying bricks. He asked the second man the same question and he said he was putting up a wall. When he got to the third man and asked him what he was doing he said he was building a cathedral.

Three people doing the same thing the only difference was perspective, the big picture verses the small.  But Have we made a assumptions as it might concern purpose and passion? Latter on in the story we learn that the first man was very passionate about laying bricks. A man who was passion focused on the details and art of his task.  Who is to say which man had the most or “better” passion or purpose?

I have a great job where I work with wonderful people and feel valued as an employee but I still feel a void. The work I do isnt making any impact in the world

There are 7.7 billion people in the world. How do we measure which ones make more or less a impact on the ‘world’?

If a “flap of a butterfly wings” impacts the weather (all things are connected) everything we do matters and has purpose that we can be intentional and passionate about.

Enjoying your work with  people that you value and that value you, creating the conditions that you get to encourage, support and grow… in is huge!.  The Love and care you share with others as you do what you do, that has impact! Could that be your passion?

Dear Priscilla:

The title of your thread is “Finding your true passion“. In your original post you wrote: “I have tried to find what lights my fire“-

– It is natural for any young child, seeing her mother suffering, to feel a lot of empathy for her mother and to want to do anything and everything it takes to make her mother happy. It is a child’s first passion when her mother is unhappy.

I think that your original “true passion” (what would have light your fire as a child)- was to take away your mother’s suffering and to make her happy.  If all you could do was to “spend a lot of time with her”- that’s what you did. But if there was a tall, difficult mountain to climb to make her happy, you would have climbed that mountain.

Question is: did you give up on that original passion?

* I will be away from the computer for a while.

anita

Hi Priscilla,

I know it’s a bit late to discuss your topic. But I couldn’t find my passion too. Well, I still can’t. I didn’t even have a proper hobby. All I had was my job which was good but not really satisfying. The thing is it stopped bothering me after my therapist asked me to write some kind of autobiography. It was hard for me to talk about myself on the consultation, so I decided to give it a shot.

I had to Google some tips on how to write it because I didn’t have any writing skills. I remembered all similar school essays “About myself” and it gave me creeps. 😀 So, I went with this one as it was one of the briefest, but you can use any other source you find.

Then I started writing. It took me almost a month to finish it. I always struggled the feeling I had nothing to write. Every time I tried to start a new part, I was confused. So, I spent several days thinking about every point and making notes when I remembered something worthy.

Finally, I collected all my notes and combined them in a single long text. What I realized was I had lots of hobbies and activities that were still interesting for me. That’s when I realized I just didn’t have time for them. I understood that I didn’t even read a book for two years! But I love it!

So, now I read a lot again. Yes, I can’t call it a passion, and it doesn’t fully cover my expectations. But I started with a small step, and it helps me to believe I’ll find anything else later. I sometimes re-read my “autobiography.” And now I plan both money and time to spend them on activities I like. For example, I also started donating some money to an animal shelter. It encourages me and makes me truly happy.

I hope you’ll find your passion. <3