As we saw yesterday, to fulfill your true destiny, you must follow your instincts. Of course, if you don’t, you may still find yourself living a comfortable life—you pay your bills, fill out all of the right forms, and live a life of fitting in and doing it by the book. But it’s a book that was written by somebody else. You’re aware of that nagging companion saying to you, “This may look right, but does it feel right? Do you have a passion for your chosen path in life?” For many people, the answer is, “How do I discover my passion?” Today, I’m going to help you answer that question.
You’ll find your passion in what inspires you the most. And what does the word “inspire” mean? It derives from the words “in spirit”. When you’re inspired, you never have to ask about your purpose. You’re living it. For one of my children, it’s about riding horses and being at the stables. She’s in heaven when on horseback or even cleaning out a stall filled with horse manure. Another daughter is only inspired when she’s singing, writing music, or performing. She’s felt that way since she was two. For another, it’s her artwork and design that make her feel purposeful. For yet another, it’s designing websites and creating computer programs for others. For me, it’s writing and speaking and creating products to help people become self-reliant. This has always been my passion, even as a young boy.
What is your passion? What stirs your soul and makes you feel like you’re totally in harmony with why you showed up here in the first place? Know this for certain: Whatever it may be, you can make a living doing it and simultaneously provide a service for others. I guarantee it.
Being excited about life is infectious—it rubs off on others. I’m reminded of a whale-watching trip I took, where I observed a young woman I know named Beth as she spoke to a group of people about humpback whales. Her enthusiasm was palpable to the entire group aboard the boat, and the more passion she displayed, the more she seemed to inspire her audience. I’ve been aboard other boats and seen the impact of guides who merely go through the motions: People in this low-energy environment don’t leave the experience feeling inspired.
Beth, on the other hand, feels a passion that she conveys to others every single day during the whale-mating season. Every day! You see, she studied marine biology in college and has always been fascinated by humpback whales and their amazing ability to travel between Alaska and Hawaii, to go six months without eating, to give birth in warm waters, and then navigate to cold waters on the return. For Beth, these whales are a part of God’s mysterious, miraculous creation. She’s living her passion, and she inspires others by her enthusiastic way of being. In fact, everyone in this vicinity knows that expeditions with Beth are almost a guarantee that you’ll not only get to see the whales, but that they’ll dance and breach and even swim under the boat for you. It’s as if the whales themselves respond to Beth’s excitement!
When you’re enthusiastically living your passion, whatever it may be, you transmit spiritual signals to those around you that you’re loving who you are, what you came here to be, and whoever comes into your field of vision.
The only thing that will keep you from your passion is fear. According to A Course in Miracles, there are only two basic emotions: one is fear, the other is love.
You may fear the disapproval of others. Take that risk and you’ll discover that you receive more approval when you don’t seek it than when you do. You may fear the unknown. Take that risk as well. Wander in there, asking yourself, “What is the worst thing that can happen if this doesn’t work out?” The truth is that you will just move beyond it. You’re not going to starve to death or be tortured if it doesn’t work out. You might fear being successful. You may have been conditioned to believe you’re inadequate or limited. The only way to challenge these absurdities is to go toward what you know you’re here for and let success chase after you, as it most assuredly will. Or, you may fear the biggest one of all: You may fear failure.
This may come as a surprise to you, but failure is an illusion. No one ever fails at anything. Everything you do produces a result. If you’re trying to learn how to catch a football and someone throws it to you and you drop it, you haven’t failed. You simply produced a result. The real question is what you do with the results that you produce. Do you leave, and moan about being a football failure, or do you say, “Throw it again,” until ultimately you’re catching footballs? Failure is a judgment. It’s just an opinion. It comes from your fears, which can be eliminated by love. Love for yourself. Love for what you do. Love for others. Love for your planet. When you have love within you, fear cannot survive. Think of the message in this ancient wisdom: “Fear knocked at the door. Love answered and no one was there.”
That music that you hear inside of you urging you to take risks and follow your dreams is your intuitive connection to the purpose in your heart since birth. Be enthusiastic about all that you do. Have that passion with the awareness that the word “enthusiasm” literally means “the God (enthos) within (iasm).” The passion that you feel is God inside of you beckoning you to take the risk and be your own person.
I’ve found that perceived risks are not risky at all once you transcend your fears and let love and self-respect in. When you produce a result that others laugh at, you’re also stirred to laughter. When you respect yourself, stumbling allows you to laugh at yourself as an occasional stumbler. When you love and respect yourself, someone’s disapproval is not something you fear and avoid. The poet Rudyard Kipling declared, “If you can meet triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same . . . yours is the earth and everything that’s in it.” The key word here is “imposters.” They’re not real. They exist only in the minds of people.
Let the world know why you’re here, and do it with passion.