Passion
I’ve never been big on ‘reality TV’, but I do really enjoy watching Gordon Ramsay’s F Word – not because of the carnage and spectacular amounts of swearing, (though it’s entertaining) but because it doesn’t seem to be terribly often in life that you see someone with that much passion for what they do. It’s not just a work ethic type thing – it is a pure love of what they are doing that drives them.
Frankly, I’m a little jealous because I still haven’t quite stumbled on my passion yet. I know it’s out there, and maybe I’ve found it and just haven’t quite realized it yet. The estate & townhouse are a bit distracting to say the least. Maybe when I’m not constantly thinking about phone calls and contractors and such I’ll have a different outlook.
Cooking, writing, photography, helping people, mucking about with technology. They’re all things I really enjoy and bring me happiness and satisfaction. (Who in their right mind stays up until 3AM deconstructing a WordPress theme for fun?) But if someone were to say to me, “I’ll pay you to do this”, I don’t know if I would be jumping at the chance. The site migration is a good example – I’ve had a ton of fun mucking around with it, but it’s MY project, MY deadlines, and I have no one to answer to but myself. (OK, and the tens of people that read the site.) But, when it becomes your livelihood, those nice control aspects disappear and then it’s not as much fun anymore… Best example would be my last job – mucking about with technology – loved it – but the less control we had over the situation, the worse it got.
I have a few people in my life who have that passion for what they do, the lucky bastards. Here’s to them keeping it and to my finding it eventually.