August 8, 2012

Passionate Living

Passion is the spice of life. It’s the difference between riding a roller coaster and screaming with your hands in the air or holding on for dear life anticipating the end of the ride. It is the joyous anticipation of going out with friend’s verses the dread of wondering if it will be fun or if you will fit in. Imagine trodding through each day caring little about anything. We call that survival and it is not the kind of excitement and joy life is meant to bring.

 
We cut ourselves off from passion for a number of reasons. Maybe we’re afraid of rejection and we live in fear that we won’t be accepted or maybe we try to be loved by trying to make everybody else happy, an impossible task. Perhaps we see our life as a series of failures and have just stopped taking risks. Whatever the reason, if we stop trying to overcome the beliefs that hold us back, we are destined for mundane living. In order to keep going we end up cutting ourselves off from emotion and living depressed or anxious lives.

On the other side of the coin are those of us who live exclusively on passion. We cut off our intellect and just go with wherever our emotions carry us. If we want to shop, we shop regardless of our financial situation. If I want a car I buy it because, after all, I deserve it. Who cares if it is a two-seater convertible and I have a family of four. If I want to have an affair, I will because it feels good and my needs aren’t being met at home anyway. The list is endless.

As always, balance is the key. God gave us minds, emotions, spirituality, and physical aspects to our lives on purpose. They are meant to help us live in harmony and be joyous and productive. My encouragement is to live with passion, which comes from our emotional place, but to balance it with thinking through the positive and negative consequences and checking what we are about to do with our spiritual beliefs and physical constraints. Only when those four aspects are in harmony and congruence will we be able to truly enjoy the adventure without regret.