Passion

I think it was a psychologist who once told me that if you don't know what you're passionate about, try being passionate about whatever it is you're doing. That's the trick, I suppose, being able to manufacture motivation and drive where there would otherwise be none. Still, often the act of believing something is enough to make it so. These may seem like strange words coming from someone like me, slightly cynical and as pessimistic as I often am. Funny thing is, I think I really believe them. I'm not talking about anything supernatural or paranormal - although I went through that phase in my teenage years - but, as I keep saying, a little self-belief can go a long way to creating confidence, and all manner of good things can flow from there. I keep harking back to this because, although I have accepted this idea intellectually, I haven't embraced it emotionally yet. I keep repeating it for my own benefit, in the hope it will sink in.

My idea of passion isn't an elitist one. I don't believe it only matters if you're driven to be a doctor or lawyer or pilot; it's not about external measures of success, it's about individual emotional fulfillment. If your dream is to become a human rights lawyer and change the world then go for it but, equally, if it's your dream to open a fish and chip shop in a seaside town then go ahead and do that. It might sound cliched but I think that regardless of what your dream is, if you've got the courage to follow it you should be applauded. I'm not talking about following a dream at all costs with a screw-everyone-who-gets-in-my-way sort of mentality. Shirking responsibility to chase a dream is selfish and probably isn't going to leave you feeling all that rosy.

At this point in my life I have no real responsibility. Nor do I have any passion. I have a couple of vaguely-defined goals, neither of which I'm really working towards. There's the writing thing and there's also faint desire to play cricket for Australia. The latter is nothing more than a daydream considering I don't actually play cricket but, for the last couple of years at least, I've thought it would be something I'd enjoy. Not that it's actually that much crazier than me wanting to be a writer, I rarely do any writing either. The reason for this inaction, so I keep telling myself, is that I'm lazy. But that's not really true; I'm not a lazy person at all. It's really because I have no faith in myself. If I did have a real passion for something, or at least enough self-belief to pursue my current goals, I know I would whole-heartedly apply myself to achieve my objective. I know that's a cop-out - putting the solution beyond the realm of my control - but it's how I feel.

To a degree, I also feel as though not trying is a way of keeping alive the idea that anything is possible. It's counterintuitive, I know, but if I follow a dream and fail, I'll need to accept that I'll never achieve that dream. If I don't try (and consequently don't fail) then, at least in theory, I'll always be able to believe that dream is still possible. In practice, however, it is pretty clear that accepting this means accepting that I'll never achieve anything.

If it wasn't already, it should now be blindingly obvious that I over-think and over-complicate just about everything. Some advice I got in a comment a few days ago definitely needs to be applied, quite liberally, to my whole life: don't think so much. If I disconnect the unnecessary part of my brain for just a minute, one thing is clear: I'm a fool if I wait around for things to happen to me, I need to make them happen. Life is going to come and go, with or without me.