I remember always being told that you need to follow your passion. It sounds like good advice. Following your passion. Yet, as I’ve grown older I’ve questioned the “wisdom” of those words. It is more appropriate to just HAVE passion and bring it to whatever you choose to do. Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs, talks about it on his TED talk. He’s known for his work about Dirty Jobs, but it’s a hard truth. Following your passion can be hard, but if your passion is burning within you and you take it wherever you go, well, that’s different.
I’ve done this for most of my career, thrown myself into whatever I am doing. I had a great mentor that taught me that. I’ve switched many times in the course of… well, half my life. I started out working in medical microbiology. Then I switched to working on some fairly esoteric work on pest fruit flies… and I kept switching. I never lost my passion. Oh I would get frustrated. I would sometimes lose my way. But never, ever, have I lost my passion.
Until now.
I have lost my passion. Maybe I shouldn’t be admitting this in such a public forum where all the world can essentially see. But it is nevertheless true.
I’m burnt out. I let the passion consume me.
They never tell you that even though you really ought to just know. Passion consumes. Why else is so often compared to with fire? It burns us, fuels us, drives us, makes us, shapes us, and consumes us. Passion just needs to be directed and channeled or it can leave you a… husk. Never got the memo.
I’m sure I can rekindle the passion though. Just need a break… and to realize that I need to also redirect that rekindled passion into things that restore, not just consume.
