Everyone is talking about Passion. “Follow your passion” - they say, without knowing themselves what is their own passion or how to give you advice on how to find your passion.
Many people are confused when looking for their “passion”. Interested to find their passion, people go looking to the outside. They look for activities, courses, careers; but they rarely, if ever, look inwards.
It isn’t hard to see what it is that drives people. It is in the way and things they do when they have “free time”. When we do that which we love, the concept of time cease to exist, and our mind goes quiet. I think most people know deep down what their passion is. The problem is that they always filter their passion through the question, “will this make me money”.
We are obsessed with money. We truly have come to believe that money is THE standard against what everything has to be measured to. It is not.
In fact, when thinking about joy and passion, money shouldn’t be a consideration. Joy can make money, money can’t buy joy.
What Is Passion?
As one who was lost looking for his passion for almost 40 years and relatively recently found it, I think I have cracked it.
“Passion is that which you can do and your doing becomes your being”. Let me explain.
Most jobs in the world are “things” we have to do. For the most part, irrelevant tasks we get paid to do without identifying ourselves with them. They are artificial obligations that most likely have very little impact in the world around us.
Even some jobs that have a tremendous effect on others are most of the time done in a repetitive, almost robotic manner. Think of doctors performing procedures as you would a plumber replacing your toilet. The outcome has to be good to some degree, but the process of achieving such an outcome may be full of disinterest, even disdain.
That is the problem of money, like whores it makes us do things we wouldn't do otherwise. We sell our time (our real interest) and sometimes our very principles for money, while burying dignity and perspective. Then we complain about feeling empty and without purpose.
Things are different when you do what you love. Everything gets imbued with the utmost quality and care for detail. When you do what is close to your heart, your ego, the impostor, gets lost in the task, no matter how irrelevant of inconsequential it may seem. You, the doer, becomes the action, a part of the result. Whatever you do in such a state has the beauty and purity of that which is done without another purpose other than the act of creation itself.
When your action and your being melt into a single entity, you have found your passion.
Learn From Sushi And Knives
“Yes, sure Tlahui, it sounds good and all, but I won’t pay my rent with passion.” I dare to disagree.
First of all, when you do what you absolutely love, you will not need money to make up for your unhappiness and lack of purpose. You will only need to cover the basics because you are joyful permanently; you seek no validation or external satisfaction. You are doing what you love and with time you, and what you do, become one and the same.
Time stands still witnessing you doing what you love.
Second, if you truly trust yourself and your action of love, you will excel because you are pouring heart and soul for the sake of it. You don't need to worry about competition since no one can compete with your unique experience and perspective. When you love what you do, you don't copy others because passion overflows. Instead of doing you start creating.
You realize you are God on your own scale. The pure act of love (which passion is) brings life, brings creation, brings birth. You will excel, and those around will take notice, and the money will come because as human beings we are at awe when we see the product of absolute passion… originality.
Excellence gets recognized quickly. Those who strive for perfection are those who love what they do, become the action and thus the doer. Whatever it is that you produce through absolute passion will be sought after sooner or later. Everyone wants something that embodies the highest expression of love and commitment.
Think about how much a perfect piece of sushi costs in Japan. Perfectly cut, with the greatest care of choosing and cooking the rice.
Think about those knives that are priced in the thousands of dollars. They come from a family where generation after generation every family member was committed to the ultimate blade’s craft making. The samurais are gone, cooking is forever.
Will your passion make you rich? The quick answer is WHO CARES? Money is a very low denominator in the game of true happiness and long lasting joy. Will it provide a living? You bet! When you are in a joyful state you are not materialistic, therefore your economical needs won't overwhelm you.
When you do what you love, whatever you are doing becomes an act of love. You must throw yourself into your own creative process without fear, or else your mind will use this fear to create self-doubt. Self- doubt is the most damaging state one can be in.
How To Find Your Passion?
I only learned this lesson not long ago. Before that, I was always weighing my options, - what I liked compared to how much money I could make by doing it. Unknowingly, I was putting a price on my joy and self-fulfilment.
I was perpetually dissatisfied with my life. I felt like a failure, no matter how much economic success I had.
Living that way condemned me to a life where I had to force myself to do everything. Every morning was a struggle since I never felt truly excited over what I was going to do. Only sports gave me that thrill. Because I was using sports as a way to “cover” my misery, I overdid them and ended up with injuries and compensations.
At age 30, my body was in pain, my mind lost. I was addicted to food, to sex, to buying expensive stuff, to the thrill of doing risky business for the sake of it. I ended almost broke and in debt... and more miserable than ever.
My health was shattered. In a good year I would get tonsillitis or sinusitis around 20 times a year. I was chronically dehydrated, obese, balding quickly, etc.
But reaching the hard bottom of life is great, even though it feels terrible. At the very least you aren’t lost anymore. You know you are in hell. There are only a few things to do once there; accept it and get comfortable there or do every possible thing to get out of it. I did the second.
So I dedicate my time to learning. I took absolute responsibility over my condition and situation. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, economically I was in the deepest of shit I had ever been in. I have identified the person responsible for all that mess: ME.
The moment you stop being a victim you become empowered. If I had the great power and ability to destroy my life so well and so thoroughly by 30, I could as well build myself an awesome life, right at the opposite end of where I was.
My Biggest Enemy - My Greatest Friend
Pain was unbearable and relentless. I couldn't stand, sit, walk or lie down without suffering. Concentrating at work or even enjoying sex had become next to impossible. So my motivation was to exterminate my enemy - The Pain - as soon as I could. I was ready to do whatever it took, to be out of pain.
So I researched without leaving a single rock unturned. I worked from all angles, did movement, mind, spiritual, etc. I wasn’t going to miss the answer to my problems by being judgemental.
But then something happened, the more I worked on reaching my goal of no pain, the lesser the reasons why I was doing things mattered. The process became more meaningful than the objective. Learning, practicing, experimenting, and applying knowledge became the very reason I wanted to wake up and jump out of the bed!
And as I said, people notice what you do with the utmost care and love, without a hidden agenda our intention. People soon wanted to learn from my experience. They knew the long hours I had invested in my quest and they were willing to pay for it.
It wasn’t a nice marketing talk meant to make money. I was just sharing the information and knowledge I had gathered to resolve issues most doctors told me I had to accept as normal.
My love for sports, without the need of validation or self-aggrandisement, became refined to the point that years later I had created my own movement method - Awareness In Motion - which was developed by my constant exploration of human movement. I couldn’t have practiced movement for up to 6 hours a day without loving what I was doing!
Today I coach movement, I help people to lose weight and to recover their health from all kind of conditions using food alone. Those who want my personal time pay for it happily.
Those who can’t afford it will always get the best advice I can give under the time constrictions I have.
This very blog you are reading is nothing but the extension of my passion. I want to share that which I have learned on my own with others so they can use my experience and take advantage of it.
But all this happened only when I stopped thinking about the end game. When I detached from a result; when the road became the destination magic happened, the passion was uncovered and real joy permeated every facet of my life.
The very physical pain that I was trying to battle only left the day that I detached from it. I had already adjusted my nutrition to be as anti-inflammatory as it could be. I had dedicated thousands of hours on re-learning how to move. All I had to do was to accept the possibility that I could be in some level of pain or discomfort for the rest of my life. When I did, pain truly started to vanish.
What you resist, persists. So true.
Today, Where My Passion Has Led Me
My life has become a “never ending ride of joy’. I love writing and I have plenty to write about. Life comes full circle, doesn’t it? My dad, who had stopped me from pursuing my writing interests is now proud of my work.
The creativity that I once drowned in order to be practical and make money, now overflows everything I do. I am doing photography, videography and even have learned some basic coding.
Will I ever become a millionaire doing what I love? It is possible indeed. Once the world becomes your playground, everything is possible. But again, who cares? I wouldn’t trade all the knowledge, passion and creative drive I have today for all the money in the world.