Passion and Addiction
I wish I was passionate about something in life. I could do with just about anything and not be too upset. I am always jealous of people who can throw themselves into their work or have something that they can earnestly focus their energies on and have immense satisfaction upon reaching their goals. I don’t think I have that gene in me for some reason… or maybe I have just not found the thing that I am passionate about. Events happen and goals are achieved that I probably should be excited about but I don’t really care. The reason why people watch sports, admire celebrities or look up to certain people in everyday life is because of the passion they exude (or we perceive them to exude) not necessarily their talent or the things they do. Being passionate is admirable and can be good it is also something that can have very negative consequences. I guess I choose to error on the side of caution and not get wrapped up in any one thing but I definitely wonder if I am missing out on an important part of life.
When someone is doing something because they love doing that “thing” it is obvious. Being waited on by some douche bag working at Chili’s who hates his job is far different than being helped by the owner of a restaurant who dreams of having a successful establishment. The difference is passion. If everyone had the same feelings as that restaurant owner we would be living in a far better world. Imagine if everyone cared about what they did at a personal level – things would run smoothly and there would be fewer aggravations in everyday life. Plus when you come home from doing something that you are passionate about you are a better person to deal with outside of the job. I remember when I was working at the Salt Mine – I was an insufferable son of a bitch. I spent over 8 hours a day doing something that I absolutely despised – unless I was coming home to a lingerie bra-and-panty tickle fight party (which I wasn’t) there would be no way for me NOT to be in a bad mood.
*sidenote* I understand that everyone can’t always be passionate about what they do because there would be no ditch diggers or fast food workers but there are ways to artificially add passion to any position – by making them rewards based. As I said I don’t really care about my job but I am in sales and my compensation is directly linked to how well I do. Link my performance to my pay and I instantly care about my job… its that easy. Every single job should be commission based at some level. It is the only way to make sure that someone does their job. If the only threat of not doing a job well is getting fired then a person will do just enough not to get canned which makes everyone’s lives far more difficult. If you started paying the shithead clerk at the DMV a buck for every person that she helped I know that things would get done much faster. *end sidenote*
Addiction and neglect are the ugly sides of passion. The same people who are great at what they do or excel in whatever they are interested in also tend to have substance abuse problems or focus too much of their energies on the things that they love. The addiction aspect of passion is most evident in the creative fields like writing or music. The biggest rock stars tend to have the biggest drug problems and the most cutting edge writers have a history of drug abuse. The same things that make them fixate on their writing and obsess about getting everything perfect is the same force that causes them to fall into a drug of their choice and never recover. I always find it ridiculous that people talk about eliminating addiction. That is impossible – addiction is part of what makes us human – without people being addicted to something (read: passionate) we would not have the theory of relativity, skyscrapers or the “Snuggie”… now that is a world I do not want to live in. Passionate people also have a tendency of losing control of other parts of their life due to focusing on the object of their passion. Albert Einstein couldn’t balance his checkbook… he was too focused on the things that we remember him for like revolutionizing physics. That worked out for Einstein but it can be bad for a CFO to neglect his family because all he is too focused on is his job.
I think that everyone has the ability to be passionate about SOMETHING so all is not lost for me. I just need to find out what that SOMETHING is… and not get addicted to heroin in the process…