Here’s a concept you won’t want to forget: passion always trumps excuses. Keep in mind that when I use the word passion, I’m not referring to the romantic notions that this concept conjures. Instead, I’m equating it to a vigorous kind of enthusiasm that you feel deep within you and that isn’t easy to explain or define. This kind of passion propels you in a direction that seems motivated by a force beyond your control. It’s the inner excitement of being on the right path, doing what feels good to you, and what you know you were meant to do.
It’s my contention that the mere presence of passion within you is all you need to fulfill your dreams. Remember that God is in no need of excuses, ever. The creative Divine Spirit is able to manifest anything it contemplates, and you and I are the results of its contemplating itself into material form. Thus, when we have an emotional reaction that feels like overwhelming passion for what we’re contemplating, we’re experiencing the God within us…and nothing can hold us back.
Passion is a feeling that tells you: This is the right thing to do. Nothing can stand in my way. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says. This feeling is so good that it cannot be ignored. I’m going to follow my bliss and act upon this glorious sensation of joy.
When you’re enthusiastic, nothing seems difficult. When you have passion, there are no risks: family dramas become meaningless, money isn’t an issue, you know that you have the strength and the smarts, and the rules laid down by others have no bearing on you whatsoever. That’s because you’re answering your calling—and the you who is doing the answering is the highest part of you, or the God within.
I emailed myself that quote a few days ago. Out driving this afternoon, I was listening to and the enthusiasm of the speaker-- TED Radio Hour on WAMCJill Tarter of SETI, sent Dyer's quote floating to the top of my consciousness because of her quiet, intense passion. I felt a twinge of something; let's call it...envy. Somewhere along the way I traded passion for peace, a peace midwifed by fear.
Early on, words and writing wove themselves into my soul until the fibers became
inseparable from who I am.
I wrote my first plagiarized version of the Bobbsey Twins at age 6 (Nan, Dan and the Twins in Terrible Trouble). When I was eight, after learning to write haiku, I told my teacher (Miss Barnard) I wanted to be a writer so "I could put into words what other people felt but didn't know how to say". Writing is as integral a part of me as wool felted into more wool. For those who are asking me what on earth that means, in this (distressingly mediocre) felted piece, it would be impossible to separate the morning glory from the background; it would destroy the whole, even though once upon a time that morning glory looked something like this:
But lately, it's reaching through my denial. I find myself pulling over during the long drive to work to email phrases and thoughts to myself. Poems start themselves in my head. Opening chapters whisper in my ear, but when I turn to look, no one is there. Weird things pop up in my facebook newsfeed, like a James Patterson writing class announcement that simply states "You already know how to do this". When I avoid writing at a time I'd already decided to give myself over to pen and paper (or fingers and keyboard) I feel unease and even disgust. I think I'm ready to let the passion free....but unlocking the door is so damn scary, queasy scary, what-if scary.
What about you? What passion did you once upon a time deny? Have you let it free? If so, how did you do it? And if not, maybe we can hold hands and do it together....