January 28th, 2009
Passion…Are You Melted Gold or Coins?
You have the energy of the sun in you, but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine. You’re some kind of weird gold that wants to stay melted in the furnace, so you won’t have to become coins. – Rumi
Why do we do this? Stifle or sabotage our dreams and passions by playing it safe? Why do we often choose to exist instead of living lives that explode with purpose and passion?
Could it be that perhaps we are often so busy getting all the items on our SHOULD to-do lists ticked off that we don’t even make time to write up our HAVE-TO-DO-BEFORE-I-DIE to-do list, let alone get anything ticked off it?
And if so, why is that?
Well, I’ll look to my own experience over the past month for clues. Just before Christmas, I was re-reading one of my favourite books, Something More by Sarah Ban Breathnach, and I found myself bawling like a baby…always a sure sign that something in my life needs tweaking. Again.
I came across this line: The only way you’ll be able to live authentically is to be true to your passions.
So I asked myself, what, exactly, am I passionate about? What makes my heart soar? Here is the list I came up with:
- Animals
- The environment
- Writing
- My dogs
- Falling in love again
- Workplace Safety
Then I looked at how I was actually spending the vast majority of my days.
The answer? E-mail.
E-mail? That’s not even ON my list! And yet how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.
So I looked a little deeper. Yes, e-mail was how I was spending my days – but I was often doing so because I was procrastinating on tackling what was really important to me.
So, after Christmas break, things changed…I changed. I began putting what was most important to me at the top of my list. And I am pleased to report that I recently spent two entire days working full-throttle on several of my environmental writing projects that deal with greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and tar sands development.
I care deeply about these issues and if I were to get to the end of my life and not have done my part to help contribute to the solutions, I wouldn’t forgive myself.
E-mail has its place in my life, yes – but I will no longer allow it to consume too many precious hours in my day. Frankly, I also finally just got tired of being crazily busy, yet never really accomplishing much.
And as far as my passions go, well I’m back on track again for creating coins…because staying as melted gold isn’t going to benefit anyone.
Gotta run…I’m off to Hawaii for a week for some R&R…and to partake in another of the activities I’m passionate about – walking on a beach 🙂
Maryanne