opportunity

This thought has been reverberating in my head since I heard Dr. Henry Cloud say it at a leadership event last week: 

Ever since I decided/claimed/noticed/decried a couple years ago that I don't have an all consuming passion I've lived as though that means I don't have any passions at all. That's simply not true, but it has been a handy cop-out for not actively engaging in the things I am passionate about.

Yes, I have had a few other things to tend to in the meantime. Yes, life has a way of washing right over you if you don't set up some break-waters and sometimes all you can do is cling to a buoy (or in this particular case a boy). But eventually, you need to give your head a shake and get back to swimming.

And now that that metaphor is suitably exhausted, here is a random (in order and inclusion) sampling of the things about which I am passionate: 

• my family
• creating, seeing, recording, consuming things of beauty and interest
• word wrangling and devouring the wranglings of other word wranglers
• teaching others the power of their words
• travel
• trying new things

Clearly lack of passion is not an issue. As for item the second, ability, well I'm no Jill-of-all-trades but I've got some skills here and there - I'm pretty good with the words and stuff, and with telling people how to do things that I know how to do. I'm sure that if I sat down and did an inventory, I'd come up with a longer list - some things I love doing, and some things I know how to do but don'es necessarily want to.

So I have passions. And I have abilities. I suppose what has been missing of late is combining my passions & abilities to meet a need. I suspect that when a recipe is this simple, any single missing ingredient changes the outcome.

So ... I had a lot more I was going to say. Stuff about how a Venn diagram that showed my passions in one circle and how I spend my time in another circle would closely resemble a drawing of the earth and the moon, and how I'd like to change that. Some people have a passion project. I think, for the next while, passion is my project. Ya, I think it's time to step away from the couch and get into some passion action.