Lately, I have been coming across a lot of quotes, just at random, on the topic of one’s purpose and passion.
I’m not talking in a strictly religious sense but in a real, practical sense. Things that set you on fire. Things that CONSUME you. Things that if time and money and unlimited resources were at your command you would spend the rest of your life doing.
I hear all the time in my “religious” circles about how Jesus should be my passion, and serving the church and all of that. And while that’s good, and important, I don’t think that’s exactly the way it’s supposed to be. Religion and family and things like food and exercise and so forth are part of the warp and woof of your life, they’re woven into the fabric of who you are, they aren’t your ‘fire’. Your job as well, unless you are able to do something that you are very passionate about, is only a part of the make up of your being, it’s not the “oomph”, the push, the reason for being. (There are exceptions – Franciscan Friars, for example, consumed with their devotion, recipe book writers, consumed with food…. etc.)
I fear that too many people devote their time to all of that, the church and the family and the job and the fitness and the learning and they miss the thing that really sets them ablaze. They miss that ‘something’ that could make the difference between a quiet life and one of such sound and brilliance that it changes the world. Maybe not the whole world, but certainly the world they live in.
I watch a lot of documentaries, it’s something I like to spend my time on. I’ve seen someone set on fire in this way. There’s a little series on Netflix called “Chef’s Table”. And actually, every episode of the series highlights a chef that is absolutely on fire for doing what they are doing. Not the reality-tv scripted things you see, but these guys are really just consumed to ashes with their craft, their art.
I want that. I need that. I need that thing, that nebulous, unobtainable thing that these people have. I don’t know how to find mine.
I don’t believe there are rules to follow to obtain it. I don’t think there is a formula that someone can commit to with their habits and life to get to it. I think it’s something that happens TO you. But like intentionally, literally being set on fire, it’s something you have to allow to happen, or maybe even accidentally…
Author Octavia Butler writes in her book “Parable of the Sower”: Without positive obsession there is nothing.
Positive obsession.
I’m obsessed with a lot of things. I’m obsessed with chocolate. I’m obsessed with geeky sci-fi and super-hero movies. I’m obsessed with collecting the entire musical library of the band U2. I’m obsessed with social media. I’m obsessed with noodles. I’m obsessed with video games. I’m obsessed with my wife.
I don’t know if any of those things are positive obsessions. At least not in a life-altering, world-changing kind of way.
I know I’m rambling on here and maybe I’m not sure what my real point here is, other than my own desire to find me ‘thing’, but I have noticed that there is something in common with all the on-fire people I’ve encountered.
Other people.
Even the most reclusive person makes something, does something, produces something that affects the lives of others. Be it a book, a work of art, food, movies, music, what have you. They produce something that is of use to others.
My wife, for example. She’s a teacher. But for her, teaching is more than her job. It’s more than something she does because she can, it’s what she IS. It is the core of who she is. Not everyone that teaches for a living is a teacher in their core. They can love it, they can be successful at it, but it’s not their BEING. It’s not their positive obsession. She’s found her’s. And it’s world-changing. Life-altering. Not just her’s, but every child she meets.
We are charcoal. We are meant to burn. We are meant to be consumed to ashes by the thing that sets us on fire. Anything less is a disservice not only to ourselves, not only to the God who made us (if you so believe), but tho those who would likewise catch a spark from our inferno.
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