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"Passion, like discriminating taste, grows on its use. You more likely act yourself into feeling than feel yourself into action." – Maria Popova  Follow your passion? That’s bad advice. At least, in part. Before you follow anything consider what may be pulling you towards it, or pushing you. Advertizing is telling us to do something. However, calls to fancy free action in the moment aren't necessarily the best foot forward for our future. Put down your Oak scented beard oil and your glamping paddle pillow along with your lackadaisical wanderlust for a moment. Instead, just sit in silence and think. The further we can see into our future, the more powerful we become. We're able to get a better look at what we’re lining up in the equation that we’re creating. You're sitting in your office on your allotted 15 minute break surfing Craigslist, Best of Reddit, before falling upon Draw a Stickman. You think about how cool it would be, no, rewarding to see a stickman that you yourself created when you glance up and right, constructing imagery of your future self. Shit. The not too distant future looks pretty banal. You're in the same ergonomic swivel chair with the abused coffee break breath, but now with an inventory of stickman drawings, craving shitty carbs and wearing extravegantly coloured socks. You begin to fantasize about quitting your job during a sunny day when Renegades by the X- Ambassadors come on the radio. All those advertizments of people quitting their 9-5 jobs and becoming brew masters, travel photographers, or off-roading jeep drivers seems within reach. However, the reality is you've squandered so much free time (time outside of work, and breaks within it) getting the quick feel-goods, but have forgotten about the search for the meaning of it all. We have forgotten to talk to ourselves, to ask ourseleves questions. When we begin to ask oursleves the big questions, our self-satified mediocrity shakes apart and discovery echoes through the cracks a depth of ones own true heart. A voice of vocation is heard back. Stickman...sticks...wood...woodworking. Of course! You realize that you've actually loved woodworking since building that locker divider in Junior High. Authority figures during your youth scared choice and dreams into a pensionable career promising antidotes from suffering, but confining you to the hours of employment for a life sentance of 30+ years.
Oops, hey, 15 minutes are up desk jockey and work isn't paying you to realize the power of your passion. However, the next day instead of sitting around the office for lunch, engaging in breezy chitchat, you grab the carpenter's apron from your locker, run over to the Ottawa City Woodshop, and sign yourself up for a membership. Every lunch hour for the foreseeable future is now dedicated to creating products from reclaimed wood. Six months later with a disciplined schedule that snowballs an excited pursuit, you've found yourself with an inventory of products and a lifestyle career in healthy development. Your heart is fully committed even when your time is divided. Passion increases productivity in both careers because quality coheres itself to your character from a discovery of aptitude and an additional income stream. Follow your passion? No. Bring it with you wherever you go. Never be pushed into passion, but driven to your own discoveries.
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