Passion!

Are you living your life with passion? Or do you merely exist from one day to the next? This came to me recently while I was doing something quite mundane, washing dishes by the sink in the kitchen. I don’t know why these profound questions always come to me when I’m in water, whether washing dishes, showering or even scouring the bathroom, I tend to think of things in a whole different way, or maybe it was just the coffee…either way I’ve been pondering this for awhile.

I asked myself, what is my passion, not the romantic version, the real one that makes a difference in your life, touches your soul, causes one to pass their comfort zone and stretch themselves a bit more than usual but simultaneously giving you joy and inspiration amidst the hard work in accomplishing it, whatever it is.

I know my passion is the written word, whether writing or reading it. I find comfort in reading. I read a bit of everything good, bad, trash, classics, everything I could get my hands on. When I was home I had a favourite east Indian mango tree I used to climb, it had the perfect seat and I used to sit in there for hours just reading while my sister, cousins and friends played childhood games. I never grew tired of reading.

I recalled once when we were called to dinner by my aunt, I took my dinner and went into our bedroom behind the bed to eat because I knew I couldn’t go to the table with the book. The bed was set up in such a way that the head of the bed spanned the corner where the walls met and so a triangular space was created with this set-up. I sat back there with my plate of fish and yellow yam, dumplings, gravy and a delicious smell emanating from the plate. I put the plate down, opened up the book and started reading. I was aware when our house cat ‘snooky’ came and sat there but I ignored him and kept on reading.

Next thing I knew, I looked down and my fish was completely gone and now my food had cat saliva all over it and I started to cry and went back to my aunt who was shocked and yelled at me for being so foolish (rightly so). She asked where was I, what was I doing and didn’t I see the cat eating my food? Questions coming at me fast and I just wanted to disappear. I was simply reading and everything else was blacked out, just like that.
Now was that passion or stupidity? I choose to believe it was my passion with the written word in its budding stages.

When I started this blog I barely knew anything about computers and I’m still a student in training but I knew I needed to stretch myself a bit and leave my comfort zone, so to speak and started writing (publicly), I knew I needed to do something. So I timidly began my journey and I’m still here learning and enjoying the process as I go along.
My cousin asked me sometime ago after I started blogging, if I remembered what I said I wanted to do when I grew up, I told her I didn’t recall at all. “Well, she said, we were playing under the bed and I asked you what you wanted to do when you got big, you told me you wanted to write a book”. “Really, I said, imagine that”. While I’m no where near the beginning of my book, I’ve started my journey and that my friends is the first step.

Find your passion and live it, life is so much more profoundly interesting and enjoyable and you’ll feel better for it, I promise. Even with the growing pains you’ll experience while doing it, it will be well worth it!!

I do hope for the new year you’ll find your passion and if you’re having trouble figuring out what it is, let’s just say in my experience, it’s something that you can’t help doing and feeling very happy and fulfilled while pursuing it, but of course it has to be moral, decent, kind, uplifting and inspiring. That should give you a clue.