Looking for Passion in all the Wrong Places

As a life coach and a mom of three budding adults, I hear and use the word passion quite a bit. “Find your passion in life and you will be happy.” “I want to be in a relationship that is passionate in every way.” “I’m unhappy because I don’t have a passion.” These are but a few of the comments I say to my children or hear from others quite a bit. My comments are well-meant and filled with a desire to help my children, and others, find a happy, meaningful life.

What if passion happened to reside right inside of us?

However, what if we are looking for passion in all the wrong places? What if passion isn’t outside of us in the form of a career or a partner? What if passion happened to reside right inside of us where it can be easily accessed on a moment’s notice? What if our external surroundings were only a small part of the passion equation?

Can someone who works in a factory find a life of passion? How about someone who never meets the right love partner for them? Can you find passion if you don’t have a lot of money or if you have a debilitating illness? If you said no, I’m going to challenge you to look again. I know people in all of those situations who are living lives of passion because the passion isn’t about what happens outside of them, but rather how they view those circumstances from within them.

If we are dependent on our external world to give us happiness and passion, we might be in a bit of trouble. Why? Because stuff happens. Illness happens, old age happens, bad economies happen, and relationships end. If we are dependent on all of those things not happening, then we are guaranteeing that we can only periodically live a life of passion and happiness.

Sometimes we have to work a little harder to find happiness and passion.

Passion and happiness come from our internal viewpoint and transfer out to our external world. Sometimes we have to work a little harder to find happiness and passion, but just our desire to find it suggests that we have what it takes to do so. We are all like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz when the Wizard tells her that the ability to go home was in Dorothy all along. She just had to be aware of her ability to do so.

Look for passion and happiness within yourself and then project it out to your world. You will find that it has been there all along. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t look to find careers or people or situations that we love. We should. It means that if we expect those careers or people or situations to be responsible for our happiness and passion, we will likely feel unfulfilled forever.

Love,

Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC