The common phrase is “Indulge your passions.” To me this is a bit condescending. As if your passions were a pet you want to spoil, a child that deserves to be released from school work, or something you should feel guilty for but will do anyway. Such crap. Our passions are sign posts pointing us in the direction our souls need to go. Is an athlete indulging their passion by working out? Is a business person indulging their passion by making the right decisions to grow their business and their personal fortune? Is a fireman or an EMT indulging their passion by becoming tops in their field. Nope. Nothing indulgent about it. Nor are they necessarily driven. That’s another term that gets bandied around. Like its the wild west and we need to whip that horse so that it gives us every last ounce of strength it has until it dies in the saddle, but somehow miraculously it doesn’t. That’s another way of looking down on a soul guided life.
Passions are the huge arrow pointing “That’s the way you need to go in order to have the life you want”. They are quite different from compulsions or addictions which are also arrows, but pointing at things that need to be healed, revealed, validated and incorporated. Passions should be revelled in. You know that arbitrary number of 10,000 hours to master something? Well, how logical, left brained and regimented is that. Passionless! We all know that time moves at different rates depending on our enjoyment of the moment. Pleasure makes time speed while dislike of something makes it slow into incremental torture. So reveling in passion seems like a necessary ingredient for life, almost a necessity.
Our passions aren’t frivolous. They are the means for our soul to manifest our true nature into the world. They are the song we sing adding beauty and wonder into the world. They rarely have anything to do with success other than as a side effect. We don’t have passion for success, but committing time to our passions each day accretes success like coral making a reef. Reveling in our passions is not a zero sum proposition. It’s not taking away from other things, it gives to us exponentially. We get to experience the moment and fill ourselves with the fullness of being which we are here to achieve. This blesses everyone around us, fills our cup to overflowing so we can give to others effortlessly, creates new aspects to the universe for others to experience and connect with, gives others permission to do the same, and gives to us rather than taking from us so we are energized to do other things with ease and abandon. Talk about bang for your buck??!!!! Who wouldn’t want that return on their investment?
So stop thinking about indulging your passions like it’s some vacation you might get some day or a luxury you have to earn. Revel in your passions every day because you can’t afford to do anything else.