Being Passionate Is As Important As Finding “Your Passion”
By Judy Wood In InsightWhat does mean to “find your passion”?
“Find Your Passion” is a common refrain today. It’s a refrain on social media, the subject of speeches at graduation ceremonies and the topic of aspirational conversations of all kinds. We are asked to examine ourselves and discover what really drives us…and be that. Finding your passion is the key to living a good life, the right life, making a difference in the world, having joy, being a leader. The implication here is that if you don’t find your passion your life isn’t going to be fulfilling, and your passion is a choice you make to do something.
I think we can all agree that is important for young people to find something powerful and important to build their life on: a goal for the future. However, there is more to it than settling on an activity.
Passion is not a singular thing that you find in one place inside of you. It is larger than any one choice that you make and cannot be defined or limited by the changing circumstances of our lives. Passion is something you choose to create and that you can and will reignite again and again. It’s a quest and a choice in and of itself. It’s a way of living.
As parents and teachers we can help our children discover their passion by trusting their instincts and by trusting our own. Some children discover something they love right away. Others try many things. Some children focus on something that makes sense to their parents or teachers, that maps onto something that seems to bode well for the future. Others develop a passion for things that are harder to understand. It’s easy to be concerned because we know how challenging life can be, and it’s difficult to know how to support our kids as they grow and learn while still guiding them away from danger.
Your passion is a tool for living life.
It helps if we recognize that passion is a value, a tool for living life; a state of being. Positive values connect with other positive values. The more your child connects their passion to other values, the more sustainable and positive their passion. Here are some guideposts.
- Passion connects with discipline, with the daily work that keeps your passion alive.
- Passion connects with personal accountability, the ability to take responsibility for your intentions and actions.
- Passion connects with community, with making friends, finding mentors and sharing with other people, with working for a common goal
- Passion connects with fun, because we enjoy what we are doing
- Passion connects with sustainability because it transcends momentary infatuation or frivolity.
Kids often hop from activity to activity, and that can be frustrating for parents. However, it can help if we look to see if there are common threads tying these activities together, common values in particular. Generally, even if they seem like they are moving around at random, they are still building deeper skills. They may not have settled on a passion, but they are learning how to be passionate.
For Further Reading
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/adolescents-explained/202001/childhood-passions-can-have-long-lasting-benefits
https://www.naeyc.org/our-work/families/share-your-passions-your-child
https://www.rootsofaction.com/what-am-i-passionate-about/
•