Passion versus Purpose. Tomato, To-mah-to…
by Pamelagrace Beatty
You have probably heard a million times, “Working at what you are passionate about will make you happy!” There is also the “Do what you love, and the money will follow” statement that has been the subject of many self-help books. The latter may be true but apparently it is not as easy as it might seem. Think of the many athletes, actors and performers who finally or quickly make it big by doing what they love. Behind what seems like a serendipitous or lucky happening are elements that contribute to these successes that go beyond simply “following your passion.”
Determination
When following your passion, you can become discouraged when others don’t agree with or welcome the object of your passion. Think about the dress designers who every time they show their work, those who see it say, “Yikes, who would ever wear that?” Or the wannabe painters who show their work and get a similar reaction? Since we all have seen clothing we wouldn’t be caught dead in, much less alive; or we have seen art in a friend’s home, or in an establishment, that makes us question the sanity of the buyer. We do realize that everyone has different tastes. And that fact is key. The designer or artist creating stuff others tell them is awful, may believe that someone somewhere will buy it and keep trying. That’s determination!
I’m a painter and numerous times someone has reacted negatively to something I painted. I now paint for myself. Only I must like the painting. If someone else likes it too, great, but it’s about whether I like it. A year ago, I painted a picture of my backyard as I would like it to be in the spring. At the time I painted the picture, it was dreary. The skies were gray and there was snow…lots of snow…not pretty snow. So, I painted this picture of my backyard with flowers in large pots, trees in bloom and a bright blue sky. I put it on my website and to my utter amazement a friend who lived across the country saw it and bought it. She said it reminded her of her backyard. I loved the painting almost as much as I loved selling it to a friend!
Sometimes the reverse happens. I was taking a clay class in college years ago. There was a guy in the class who was very good at working with clay on a potter’s wheel. He also was sweet enough to center all my clay for me since I couldn’t do it and if you can’t center the clay, you will never be able to make anything on the wheel. One day this guy made a vase with a head in place of the opening. He was experimenting and after he finished the vase, he hated it and said he was going to throw the whole thing away. I loved it! I insisted he let me have the object which he did. I took it home at semester break and sat it on my mom’s coffee table (I was still living at home). When I finished school and was moving to New York, I started to pack my vase with my things, but my mother stopped me. She loved that piece of art and refused to part with it. Years later it is still on her coffee table.
Both my friend and I (and my mother!) showed determination in our passion. My friend was determined to excel in his passion of making objects from clay. Making things on the potter’s wheel was a passion of mine as well and though I couldn’t do it at that time, at least I got this beautiful piece of art, as did my mom. Since then, I have taken a number of classes in how to throw clay on the wheel and create things. I can now center the clay and am determined that one day I will make some really good objets d’art.
Working It
This saying, “Do what you love and the money will follow,” makes earning money by working in your passion sound so simple and easy. Perhaps. It makes sense to some degree. Think about when you are doing something you totally love. Time flies by. You might forget to eat. You may work way past your bedtime and not stop until you realize you can’t see straight anymore. You may find yourself jumping out of your bed in the morning, anxious to get started on that work. In the past I have sewn my own clothes. I loved it. I would get totally involved and work well into the night. It was only when I sewed the sleeve on backwards or ran the machine needle through my finger that I would realize it was time to quit. I did learn to pay more attention to time after injuring my fingertip a couple of times. But that’s what it is like when you love what you are doing. You are totally engulfed, involved, embraced by it. That is how you know you love what you are doing.
Though we might envy those who are doing what they love, and it seems to come so easy to them, that is rarely the truth. Although sometimes someone is just amazingly talented, and can do what they do well with ease, and doors magically open for them, that is not the same for all. Most of those who have succeeded worked for it! I read a book recently about a movie star who made lots of very successful, profitable movies. He starred in them, and they were good! I saw them! I thought he was just a talented person who was “discovered” and placed in a lead role in a movie because of that. Then I thought the other movies just came along because he did so well in the first. Well, yes and no. It turned out he was absolutely determined to have a successful acting career in the movies. He got the best folks he could find at the time to negotiate contracts for him, coach him and support him in the various roles he took. The roles were complicated at times and the characters he played were different from each other. He lost or gained weight, depending on what was required for his role. He studied the people who actually lived the lives he portrayed on screen. He was a classic method actor. He was so determined and driven that it affected his personal life. He worked, perhaps way too much. I was surprised! I thought he was just a cutie who fell into a bunch of good movie scripts, and just happened to make a lot of money doing it. I had no idea how much work he put into his craft.
So doing what you love doesn’t mean things will be simple and you won’t have to work at it. However, if you love it, that makes working at it less painful – usually.
Purpose
If, however, you are simply running on passion, or love for what you do, and it does get painful, that’s when folks have quit. When it feels too hard, too fruitless, not happening fast enough or easy enough, passion can cool. Then we let go of trying to do what we love and settle for something more rewarding and/or easier. Enter purpose. When we have a clear purpose, passion can follow. When we are clear on why we are doing something, what our purpose is in doing it, our passion for doing it will follow. And the beautiful thing about being purpose driven is there are many ways to achieve that purpose. If one route we are passionate about doing doesn’t work or becomes too much work, we stay with our purpose and change the way we are trying to achieve it. Frequently we make the mistake of believing there is only one right answer, one right way. There are millions. We just have to be open to exploring them.
Purpose supersedes passion. That may be why so many people are working jobs they don’t like. They are working from purpose versus passion. They want to feed their families, pay their bills, own a home, buy a car, and so on. They are clear about what is important to them, and they are willing to sacrifice joy for succeeding in achieving their purpose. Understandable, yes? It helps, though, to include some joy in our lives as we work at our purpose. I saw this happening once when I was doing workshops at a manufacturing plant. I was teaching communication skills to hourly employees. I was using Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” to explain how we moved from just trying to survive and have a roof over our heads, and food to eat, to “self-actualization” where we are living from our highest and best and doing what our innermost soul desires.
One of the plant supervisors said to me, “Oh, those guys don’t ever get to the self-actualization place. They are just here to make that paycheck and go home and drink beer in front of the T.V.” I wondered about the truth of that. As the class went on, I overheard the guys talking with each other during breaks. They talked about what they did at home. One was building a boat because he loved being on the water. Another was saving up to travel to another country to see what it was like outside of America. Another was planning a surprise birthday party for his wife. To me, this said these employees were able to move beyond the basic levels of the hierarchy of needs. They were reaching into the higher levels in different ways. I still smile when I think of them. They had purpose and they were using their jobs to achieve that purpose.
More power to them, and to you, as you continue on your journey to doing what your innermost soul desires!
