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humorist-workshop
Passion
I don't know if this is in the right category or not but it seemed closest to what I'm feeling. Sorry if this is long. Okay, as everybody knows the Olympics are on and I have been watching. Seeing every Olympian out there doing what they love to do, hearing the grueling practices they go through of 2 hours of running and 12 hours of just practicing techniques everyday makes me have a new found respect for them but it also got me thinking. Is it weird that I don't have a passion for something? I know that may sound weird but I don't have something that I come home to and say like "I'll be out doing __ for the rest of the night!" or when I don't do it for a while I start to miss it. I have been watching videos of Shaun White and just hearing about the stuff he says about snowboarding, that he loves it and he doesn't even look at it as work, that he wakes up everyday happy and excited to be out on the hill, it makes me so upset. Lindsay Vonn and her passion for skiing, Shaun White and his passion for snowboarding and skateboarding, Sven Kramer and Apolo Ohno's passion for skating. I always think the lowest of myself "I'm not going to succeed in life" "You're future is going to stink because you won't have fun" I mean, I make my own clothes sometimes and that's fun for me, I love music, I play the clarinet and some guitar, I try and write my own songs but I don't come home and go up to practice music for 4, 5 hours on end. Is there really something wrong with me for not loving something?
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Want to answer more questions in the Health & Fitness category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Mental health?
Honestly, I think the people who do have that kind of passion that are the weird ones.
Not weird in a bad way, but weird in the uncommon way.
We like to say, and to tell our children, to go out there and find the thing you love to do and do it!
Its nice advice, but the truth of the universe is that most people jobs are just jobs. Some are very good at them. Most don't hate them. But they are still just their jobs.
Those of us who devote our lives to something we are passionate about are uncommon. It takes a mix of talent, and dump luck to find yourself in a position to pursue your passion. And that is if you are even lucky enough to stumble onto one. Many people don’t have something like that in their lives.
There is nothing wrong with you. Most Olympic athletes are young, rarely even thirty. The vast majority of them will go on, get degrees in some other field, and stop being sports professionals by the time they hit forty. They will have ‘other lives’ because their passion, and their ability to pursue that passion, will wane. The ones who make careers in the sport as coaches or teachers, are the rarity, not the rule.
Sure, they have very intense passion and drive, but it won’t last for most of them, and that doesn’t diminish their triumph right now. They will go one and have different kinds of fulfilling lives.
In this, just like with everything else on TV, it’s important not to mistake it for total reality. It’s just a little snippet of highly edited reality, crafted into interesting stories for our viewing pleasure. You can’t judge yourself based on it anymore then you should judge your life up beside The Bachelor or Jersey Shore. Athletes are awesome, devoted and talented people, but they are also just people. Do what you are moved to do, and don’t feel shame about it because some people are TV were moved to do something else, and do it extremely, and were lucky enough and talented enough to do it at the Olympics…
If you like your life, then go ahead and like it. If you don't like it, think of ways to change it so you will. But never snub or feel shame about the love and joy and passion you DO have, just because it doesn’t look as shiny as the people on TV.
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