Today’s prompt word is Passionate (https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/04/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-4th-2018/), and is “brought to you by the ever-charming Rosemary, is “Passionate.” Use it any way you’d like in your post. And make sure you visit Rosemary at her blog, “Rosemary Carlson, Writer” to read her post and say hi! Here’s her link:  https://rosemarycarlson.com/“.  These Jots are not only my 500-words a day challenge, but also part of my  Ultimate Blogging Challenge challenge (http://ultimateblogchallenge.com).

Passionate

Today’s tip for writing 500 words is to try free-writing. You know,when you just write and don’t worry about punctuation, etc.  It’s a hard process, because you do want to fix things if you don’t like them, but sometimes it’s just important to get something down and then go back and figure out what you want to salvage, if anything.  Or maybe it’s ok and you know you won’t use the writing for anything else: you just wanted to get some things off your chest so you could move forward with something else.  Or maybe it was just a boisterous post you needed to get done for your 500 word!

Anyway, for today’s Just Jot January challenge today, I am supposed to talk about the word “passionate”.   And I do have a few things to get off my chest about this particular word.  So, here goes.

You know what has always bothered me about the word passionate?  Well, people say you need to find something you’re passionate about in life.  What if you don’t know what that means?  Say you enjoy doing something.  Does that make it something you are passionate about?  How much do you need to enjoy something before it becomes a passion? What if you never feel like you are passionate about anything?  Does that mean you need to keep looking for something you feel “passionate” about until you die?  Or does it mean there is something wrong with you that you don’t feel passion like other people?  Seems to me we set people up for failure by imposing such a high standard on something.

Going back to the exercise metaphor I used yesterday for my writing practice, if you know you will never win a race, does that mean you don’t even try to run it?  For me, the concept of finding your passion and following it is like wanting to be perfect, but knowing you never can be.  Yes.  There are things in life I love to do.  I used to love playing the bass.  It seemed to be a “passion” of mine.  I don’t play the bass anymore.  And I don’t really miss it.  Does that mean I really wasn’t passionate about it?  Does it mean I have no more passions left?  How many passions in life can one person have?  Am I a failure if I have no more passions?  If I never have a passion at all?  If I give up something that might feel like a passion, but isn’t one anymore, or maybe wasn’t one at all to begin with?  Isn’t imposing passion on people a bit like imposing perfection on someone?  I mean, you can never reach perfection – it doesn’t exist.

Maybe we aren’t set up to be passionate about any one thing for any long-term period of time, and maybe that’s ok.  Just enjoying an experience while we can, and being present for those moments when we do enjoy something is enough.  I’m not saying we give up on something once that burning passion ends either.  Life doesn’t’ work that way.  Enjoy the passions and the angst – that’s what makes life interesting!