Reflecting on Your Life’s Passion
A personal exploration of the first secret to a joyful, successful, and fulfilling life.
Bob Olson is the host of Afterlife TV, author of Answers About The Afterlife and The Magic Mala, and founder of BestPsychicDirectory.com. You’re reading his articles on Bob Olson Connect.
BobOlsonConnect.com is an opportunity to read what I’ve written before my writings become books. Sometimes, I write about life. Other times, I write about the afterlife. Still, other times, I share a story from my life that taught me a life lesson or got me pondering some truth or epiphany about being human. I have a book about the latter that is coming out next month.
Twenty years ago, I wrote a short book for my niece, Erin, as a graduation present. I wanted to impart some wisdom that I’d gained about life, so I shared with her my twelve secrets for a joyful, successful, and fulfilling life. A few years ago, I rewrote it for my nephew, Ryan. Each version was very personalized for the recipient of the gift, allowing me to mention the strengths and specialness I saw in each of them. Recently, however, I rewrote it to speak to anyone because I plan to turn it into a book that parents, aunts, uncles, and friends can give their loved ones as a graduation gift.
When I work on any written piece, I like to have my computer read it to me. Listening to it as I read along helps me spot areas where I want to make improvements. As my computer read it to me this weekend, I began to ponder the twelve secrets in relation to my own life now. I asked myself where I stood on each topic today. It was a valuable exercise to evaluate my life regarding each secret, so I’m sharing it with you so that you may do the same.
Over the next twelve weeks, I’ll share each topic of wisdom (each secret) with you, and I encourage you to examine how your life reflects what is taught in this simple piece. I hope it will help you look back at your life with a smile. Yet, even if there are a few frowns along the way, it allows you to make amends with yourself in that area of your life. It also gives you the opportunity to ask how you might integrate this secret into your life today.
This week’s topic is about passion.
Secret #1: Follow Your Passion
"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." ~ Norman Cousins
At your young age, you’re a fountain of overflowing passion. I see it when you talk, when you play, when you do homework, and the way you care for your friends and family.
You have dreams, desires, and a vision of how you want your life to be. My advice to you is to follow that passion. Never let it go. Chase your dreams. Orchestrate the symphony that is your life to achieve your highest vision of what you want to be, do, and have, no matter how wild or crazy that vision may seem. Never again will you know the level of passion you now feel unless you nurture and protect it within your soul.
Passion drove Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel, inspired eighteen-year-old Boyan Slat to create a plan to remove plastic from our oceans, motivated Usain Bolt to run his way to eight Olympic Gold Medals, and was pumping through Rosa Parks' veins when she refused to give up her seat to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955.
The sad truth is that few people were given this message to follow their passion when they graduated, so some got caught in the trap of listening to the limiting messages of others who did not follow their passion and are now disappointed with their lives. Others got caught in the trap of pleasing others instead of pleasing themselves. Still, some chose paths that were safe and paved for them by others, though void of the inspiration and enthusiasm of a passionate life.
Throughout your life, you can know the thrill of having passion in your work, hobbies, and relationships. Passion is the fuel of a joyful, successful, and fulfilling life. When you run out of this fuel, you feel stranded and stuck. You lose that spring in your walk, that spark in your words, and that radiance in your personality.
I see passion in everything you do, and it makes you glow brilliantly. It lifts my spirit to be around you. Your entire life can shine as brightly as you do today if you follow that passion wherever it leads you. So be sure to guard and nurture it as if your life depended upon it.
How Does This Written Piece Make You Feel?
Now that you’ve read the first secret of life, I’ll give you some questions that I asked myself.
When you read about passion, how did it make you feel about your life?
Did you follow your dreams, or did you follow your parents' dream for you?
Did you take risks to live the life you desired, or did you take the path of least resistance, perhaps following a path that was handed to you?
Did you ignore the limiting messages of others, or did you believe in their limiting messages?
Were you fortunate to have parents, teachers, and mentors who taught you to think that you could be, have, and do anything you desired? If so, how grateful are you for those people now?
If you did not have people giving you empowering messages, how might you do that for yourself today?
It’s never too late to follow your passion. Even if others influenced you early in life to ignore your passions, what might you do today to fulfill them?
What early passion of yours still needs to be fulfilled?
Is it possible to live some version of that passion now that you’re older?
Even if that passion looks slightly different than how you once perceived it, how might you live it in a new way that fits who you are today?
Finally, when evaluating passion in your life, see if these questions bring a smile to your face.
If you lived your life with passion, how might that have positively influenced others who knew you? Take a moment to feel good about this memory.
Were there children in your life (your own, nieces, nephews, friend’s children, perhaps your students) who you have influenced to express passion in their lives? It’s good to think back on your contributions in this way.
How might you influence others today to follow their passions? Could you have a conversation with someone to accomplish this? Is there a letter you could write? Is there a book you could gift someone to make it happen?
This first secret about life is a helpful prompt to get you thinking about passion in your life. If you’d like to share what it brought up for you, I’d love to hear about it in the comment section. If you prefer to self-reflect privately, I respect that. Feel free just to say hello. I wish you a joyful and fulfilling week ahead.
Much love,
Bob
Bob Olson is the host of Afterlife TV, author of Answers about the Afterlife and The Magic Mala, and creator of the top directory of psychics, mediums, and animal communicators, BestPsychicDirectory.com. This is Bob Olson Connect, where you can read Bob’s articles before they become books.
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Bob,
Thanks for another great, well thought out and well written article. You always cover a lot in such a lovely way as to make me want to keep reading after the article has ended!
Some years ago I struggled with my ‘purpose’ in life (a bit related to the question, what is your passion?) and I kept coming up empty. But I was only thinking of my life in the corporate world. With much thought and soul searching I realized, at least as far as work was concerned, I was not following a passion but rather searching for what skill or service I could use to fill a needed niche. So that lead me to a realization that I was more service oriented. But again, only at work. I have a really super strong urge to be of service, to help others. I guess that could be a passion? I used to refer to myself as the best Second Banana (lol). Never wanting the spotlight, but always wanting to support others.
You may not be surprised to learn that in my personal life, I have a TON of passions! I am a lampworker. I make glass beads using a small bench-mounted torch that uses a surface mix of propane and oxygen. I use lovely glass rods from Italy to make my beads (they are quite large). I’m creating entire worlds when I sit at the torch! I LOVE cooking and baking and will seek out the most obscure ingredient for a dish I may only make once. A trip to a ‘world market’ or specialty shop is tops in my book. I am a devout foodie. I also love my continual study of all things psychic and am delving into mediumship. I adore all animals and at one time had around 15 pets. Ducks, chickens, geese, dogs, and horses. I have a rich dream world and pair that with my life’s learnings and psychic work, and am in the process of writing several books weaving it all together. I love working with power tools, tackling building my own front deck, laid laminate flooring in a tough (non—square area around corners and under doorways), doing all the woodwork, you name it, I want to fix or build it. So, for me, my passions don’t come out at work, but elsewhere. It’s something I often tell younger people that their passion may not be their job. If it IS, that’s icing on the cake. And I beat my head against a wall for decades thinking my ‘lack of passion’ at work made me a poser. Couldn’t be further from the truth!
I look forward to your next installment! And, thanks again.
Hi Bob:
Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful inspirational writing. Truly, if I'm ever having a bad day, I can just read something you have written and it immediately shifts my energy, so thank you for your consistent genuineness and thoughtfulness! It helps me want to stay thoughtful and genuine too, just by asking myself questions, such as you posted here.
Whenever I think of living a passionate life, I get kinda scared...in fact, I usually can't get passed the most obvious question such as "what am I even passionate about?!" Believe it or not...that's a huge question for me that I usually come away scratching my head. Then once (or if) I get passed answering the first question....the next obvious question is..."well, how can I pay the bills with that"...which clearly is a buzz kill, let me tell you!
It usually comes down to money to me in the end, which sadly nearly always stops me from trying at all. I'm not proud of this dead end road that I consistently park my car at the end of the day, but am just being totally honest.
I also feel somewhat of a fraud to my 20 year old daughter when I tell her to follow her dreams, but I don't follow them myself...I just tend to dabble, with not a lot of follow-through. I'm really not trying to judge myself (because I mean...what the heck good is that going to do), but I also know that I need to be honest about where I am in my own mindset.
However, the good news is (and what you also talk about in your post) that thankfully "it is never too late to get started."
I think somehow we (or others like myself) have mistakenly placed a monetary value on passion and we have to first shift our attention from that and follow our passion simply because that is what burns inside us and is never fully extinguished ....just sort of lying dormant until we start to believe in ourselves and take action, I suppose.
So in all fairness, as much as I wanted to complete the exercise...I couldn't get passed the money part in my own mind...others may struggle there too, but I absolutely love that you are encouraging us to even think about passion...that in itself is priceless and will still keep the flame alive.
Thanks for all you do for us.
In deep gratitude,
Leasa