Passion

The idea for this blog came following a conversation with my dad.

Last week he was explaining how while on holiday in Bristol, he came across a carpenter working in his shed. This carpenter was an older chap and he was sandpapering and varnishing a piece of wood. What surprised me however  was that my dad stated as fact “ I could have sat there and watched him all day”.

Now on the surface my dad now sounds pretty insane. Why would you want to watch an old man sand and varnish pieces of wood all day? It’s a carpenter's version of watch paint dry.

Now my dads not a carpenter; he has no professional interest in it at all. So what was it he meant by it?

What everyone can truly appreciate is a person who has a love or passion for what they do. 

When we see it, we are drawn to it because it is so peaceful and fulfilling at the same time. It’s often not the skill on display we admire, it’s the sense of serenity both the observer and the performer have.

Now, how amazing would it be to experience that same feeling everyday as you head off to work?

How different would your outlook, relationships, and life be? If you were doing something you loved everyday.

While watching a programme about the Lake district and Yorkshire Dales, they did a segment about fell farmers in winter. They were building a dry stone wall, slow painstaking work, but they loved every second of it. The farmer said “I can look back on that piece of stone for decades to come and think how good of a job I did. When I've finished farming in years to come that wall will still be standing”.

How amazing is that?

Imagine how different the world would be if everybody's career was something they loved, and everybody was made equally for it. Because you weren't working for the monetary value but instead the love of the task.

And I often find myself talking about this subject a lot in day to day practice. It’s no secret we “work” a lot of hours per week. It’s often remarked on by clients, and it’s true to most people the 50 hours every week we spend on our careers is a lot. 

But the 25 hours I used to spend lifeguarding each week while I was at university, were a lot more tiring, fatiguing and draining than the 50 years a week I do now. Last client on a Friday night gets a far better vision of me compared to the Tuesday evening lifeguarding version of me, that's for sure. 

For those who have gotten this far, I have two questions.

What do you passionately love to do?
And
How can you spend more time doing it?

 

Figure that out and you have the answer to life contentment and unlimited energy.