Finding a Passion

I would like to ask you for some advice: What do you think I should do in order to find my passion?
I would like to join an activity where I could meet similar people and do some networking. I am interested in finding genuine interest in a regular activity that would catch my attention, where I wouldn’t notice how the time passes by.
Right now I only have a good relationship, a supportive family and a home, but I have no interest in my friends, I don’t think we are a good match anymore, I am financially and professionally frustrated and I cannot find meaning or motivation in a certain goal. This is why I thought that finding a passion and meeting new people might benefit me both socially and in a new business.
What do you think?

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I am sorry that I cannot really help you with your doubt. I don’t really know much about it…

I know it is very nice to find a passion, but not everybody can do it. Actually I will say that very few people actually find it… unless they have the wisdom to find a passion in what is given to them.

I also struggled for many-many years looking for something that would give me that sense of satisfaction I was looking for: I tried art, sport, many different jobs, but I was not able to find what I wanted. But after much suffering and struggle I saw that the main problem was I really wanted to find SOMETHING that would cover my inner sense of emptiness; something that would give me the satisfaction that I could not find in myself. I imagine that some people find some of that in their activities, but I also know that even when they do that, they are satisfied ONLY while they do those activities, whatever they are, but when they are not – and nobody can do that all the time – they still feel empty and confused. And so those people get addicted to those activities. Of course there is nothing wrong – quite the opposite – in finding that passion, if one is lucky enough (actually it is impossible to avoid it if one is destined to find it), but in my understanding it is still not the answer to our deepest struggles. Finding that passion is like a cover up; a wonderful and apparently fulfilling cover up, but still a cover up. A passion is like getting very close to one’s heart, very-very close, but not close enough. In order to be able to use my passion – instead of being used by it – I need to be so free in myself that the passion will act as something to add to my already happy life, but not something that I need to make me happy.

And the only way for this to happen is to be already free in myself, with or without the passion. As long as I am dependent on a passion – or on anything for that matter – I will always be a slave, I will always be happy when in contact with what I like and unhappy when I am not and so I will always be under the power of my fears and desires, the desire to find what I lack and the fear that it will go away when I find it. These fears and desires are at the root of our unhappiness.

But there is more. Most people are not really able to appreciate and value what they have because when they have it, they take what they have for granted. For example, in your case you say: ‘I only have a good relationship, a supportive family and a home’. Do you know how many people that have a found a passion could be saying right now: ‘Yes, I like very much what I do… but I feel so lonely… I wish I had a good relationship, a supportive family, a home…’

It is wonderful, beautiful and a great gift to find a passion, and it is also wonderful, beautiful and a great gift to have a good relationship, a supportive family and a home. But as wonderful as they are, neither of them is really the solution to our sense of emptiness and lack. Both of them reach VERY close to our hearts, but neither of them reaches all the way. And the reason for it is that both of them are external to the heart, external to you. You can only find that sense of fulfillment in yourself; and that sense of fulfillment has to be independent of anything and everything. If the passion comes it is more than welcomed, but if it is not available for whatever reason, you are fine, because you have yourself.

Actually, in my understanding, the best passion is the passion to understand, as Epictetus said 2.000 years ago that: ‘… a man (or a woman) should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.’

So, as I said in the beginning, I cannot really help you find your passion because I don’t know much about that*, a coach or a psychologist may be more helpful, but I can point out to you that even if you find that passion – and I do hope you do – it will not take away completely that sense of insatisfaction that you find in your heart. It will cover it occasionally, but that is never enough.

What you are looking for is already in you. Everything else is, at best, only a transitory cover up. As it says in the Bible, look for the kingdom of heaven, and the rest will be added onto you.

The kingdom of heaven is in your heart of hearts… IT IS your heart of hearts. Look within.

* In any case, whatever passion you may find, it should not be too far away from where you are right now. Don’t look too far for it. Look in things you are already doing, or things you have already done. Whatever passion you may find, it is already close to you. Find peace in your mind and you will see it.