“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.” — Oprah Winfrey
My heart bleeds…for those people who live a life hemmed in by the industrial paradigm — cogs if you will.
Fear. That’s what it is…that keeps them from following their heart.
Fear of:
- Not having a job
- Not having any money
- Not being accepted
- Not having some purpose to their life
- Not having something to fill their time
But of course they never ask what’s so fearful about fear. If only they would sit, observe the thoughts that arise when they think of following their heart or making change and understand that living a half-life (if the foregoing is what it is) is living no life at all!
I’m no exemplar of anything — hell, No! — but one thing I’ve never compromised on is doing something that did not, more often than not, make my heart sing. I’m not quite in the Derek Sivers’ camp, “If it’s not Hell Yeah, then it’s simply not worth doing”, but I’ve always followed my heart, and in that way when the going has got really tough, my passion has burnt bright enough not to see me quit.
Far from me to tell you to throw baby out with the bathwater, but if I have one request, it’s to ask yourself one question: are you following your passion?
And before you say, “No, because there’s no money in it”, you need to ask yourself a more profound question, which is why does everything that makes our heart sing appear to have no or very little potential to generate money? (What does that say about us or our society?)
Trust me, as you age, you’ll come to realise that the longer you put off this question, the more painful things become. I know it’s easier said than done not to live a life of regret but there’s no right time to begin anything, and certainly putting things off is not a strategy I would recommend.
Remember what Goethe said: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”
So what’s stopping you?