At this point in time, you may have one or more interests that range from socially acceptable to quite atypical. Regardless of where they fit on that scale, there is a high likelihood that these interests will change over time, and some of them will fade away. Interests don’t last forever. You can’t expect your passion for something to remain waiting for you months or years into the future. At that time, your priorities may be so different that pursuing that interest would make no sense.
Passion Is The Engine
With this knowledge in mind, can you see any interests of yours that are not being harnessed? Passion is worth so much more than experience, wealth, and power, because it is the generating force of all of them. Your desire to put energy in a certain activity is not something to take lightly, because the only thing separating another person from completing a same task of that type is that their desire isn’t there. There are loads of people that wish they had a desire for a certain item/position.
Example: A Desire To Perform Statistical Analysis
Let’s say you are a site-owner. For the last couple of days, you have had an urge to perform a statistical analysis on 30 sites of a certain type, in order to then report it to the public on your site. You have a very short window of time with which to perform this analysis, because after a couple of weeks, your desire may be gone due to changed priorities, someone else performing it already, the newness of the idea fading, etc. Statistical analysis of others sites might be cool to you today, but it might become something you couldn’t be paid to do in a couple of weeks.
That Which Is Not Acted Upon Fades Away With Time
You have to start seeing new ideas and building desires as ticking clocks. From the minute you get the feeling that you are able to pursue an interest, your mind starts a subconscious clock, and if you pass a certain elapsed time on that clock, your mind then treats the item as though it couldn’t have been that relevant, or you would have taken action on it.
Process The Truth Of Postponement
A related note about this returns to the common theme of not lying to yourself, or understanding ways in which you are deceiving yourself. Know that when you postpone a passion, with this information about how it will disappear over time, you are throwing it into a trash can. Don’t let yourself think you are saving it completely intact for a future occasion, because doing so will get it cancelled. It is beneficial to stick with reality, so that you don’t have to make up self-rationalizations to feel like you didn’t make a mistake.
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Hey Armen!
This post resonates with me a lot because that’s exactly what I’m experiencing now – I have so many different ideas for my personal development work and my articles that if I don’t act on them immediately, usually a couple of days later they get overshadowed by other ideas that fly in. In my blog, I actually have some 80 drafts sitting, of which about a few of them are half written posts that I don’t foresee continuing in the near future.
Celes: I can relate on that note. I have a set of drafts as well, and don’t have any plans of implementing the ones in there as of yet also. They fit at a certain time but would require some alteration to become relevant again. I’d say each one has a reason for why it wasn’t fleshed out.
Passion is the engine of attainment. And it’s fleeting. Our remarkable brains with get an idea, be obsessively compelled to act upon it, while at the same time talking us out of it with a million reasons why it won’t work. The more time we let pass the more excuses and insecurities our minds will conjure up.
However, like you said, if we latch on to that passion, that momentum, in its prime state, we can carry out our wild aspirations and actually see them to fruition. It is that delicate balancing act of listening to our inner voice and blocking out our inner doubts. Timing is everything. We are all smart enough to talk our selves out of our own genius.
Matt: Timing sure is everything huh. That point at the end is a real winner. We use our own intelligence to work our way out of being amazing. If that isn’t a ridiculous way to use it, I sure don’t know what is. That is one of the main things to avoid as you build knowledge. Just like a piece of scientific knowledge can be used in a harmful way or helpful way, our own self-knowledge and manipulative abilities can be used against our efforts if not kept under control.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness.
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