Passion

What would it take for you to feel passionate about your life?  This was the question I hit my husband with last night during a commercial break in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.    My husband sat quietly, intently pondering my question.  His face did not betray an answer.  He sat, lost somewhere inside himself trying to pull an answer out of thin air.   He had none.   We went back to watching TV.  My question, however,  kept creeping back on the center stage of my own awareness.  How would I answer such a question?  Would finding my passion and naming it out loud be just as difficult?  What does it mean to have a passion for something specific, something that makes time fly, something that you love, something that comes as naturally to you as breathing?  

Intrigued by this simple word "passion", I wanted to know more.   A simple dictionary definition wasn't enough.  Turning to the Online Etymology Dictionary, I found this:

passion

late 12c., "sufferings of Christ on the Cross," from O.Fr. passion, from L.L. passionem (nom. passio) "suffering, enduring," from stem of L. pati "to suffer, endure," from PIE base *pei- "to hurt" (cf. Skt. pijati "reviles, scorns," Gk. pema "suffering, misery, woe," O.E. feond "enemy, devil," Goth. faian "to blame"). Sense extended to sufferings of martyrs, and suffering generally, by early 13c.; meaning "strong emotion, desire" is attested from late 14c., from L.L. use of passio to render Gk. pathos. Replaced O.E. þolung (used in glosses to render L. passio), lit. "suffering," from þolian (v.) "to endure." Sense of "sexual love" first attested 1580s; that of "strong liking, enthusiasm, predilection" is from 1630s. The passion-flower so called from 1630s.

 

Passion originally referred to suffering, enduring.  It didn't begin as a word describing passionate desire for another person or thing.   It didn't start out as a way to refer to the life work of an individual heart, a work that lights up that  life with transforming flame.  Passion began, as suffering , endurance.  Should we expect any less in our own lives as we move toward the work of our heart?

 

Uncovering the meaning of our lives, finding that job or vocation that was destined to be ours, is hard work.  It's a work that often involves blood, sweat and tears.  We forget.  We are all too eager to buy into the concept that uncovering one's destiny can be a simple process.  We gobble up the latest self-help books, speakers or idea, hoping that this one will make it all clear.  This one will show us the way.  This one will make it easy.  We spend our lives watching television,  playing games, talking about  the what, why and who is holding us back in desperate avoidance.  Maybe you don't but I do.  I struggle against accepting my life, against the fact that finding one's passion, is hard work.  It is hard work that will be touched by suffering.  It will test my endurance.  It is not an easy quest.  It was not meant to be.

 

Since  I was a young child, I have loved to write.  Much of it comes easily.  There is also much that does not.   Sometimes, like today, I have to force myself to write.  I feel hopelessly uninspired . I could use a good editor not to mention a publisher and a great book idea.  Those folks carrying an idea aren't going to show up on my door tomorrow.  If I want them, I've got to look for them.  I've got to do the work.  Passion isn't passion without the suffering, the work, the sleepless nights filled with a burning desire for a life that seems to lie just beyond my grasp.   Passion doesn't come dressed in an elegant tuxedo.  Passion arrives in ratty pajamas with a bad case of morning breath.  I throw myself into it's strong embrace and hang on for dear life.