What is passion?

Passion is a noun:
any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.

It seems to me that having a passion is kind of a funny thing. So many people spend their lives and their time seeking out things that they're passionate about. But part of me seems to think that if you have to look for your passion, then maybe it isn't really your passion. I mean, you might not always know what your passion is..but that doesn't mean you don't have one. The other night, I was talking to someone and they were talking about how they used to be really envious of people who have one specific thing that they are passionate about. There's people who care deeply about sports and indulge themselves in that, there's people who care intensely about academics and give up a social life for it. There's people who are excessively passionate about all sorts of things..but just because you don't have ONE specific passion doesn't mean you should give up on passions altogether. You don't have to have ONE big passion, but you can have a series of weird, or nerdy, or obscure obsessions that you're really passionate about. It's one of the many things that makes everybody different.

This identification of what passion is, and how it changes from person to person really got me thinking. The wheels in my brain were turning, and in the way that I described passion to myself, I began to think that maybe I didn't have a passion. Maybe I had spent too much time searching for one. I expressed to my friend that I wasn't really sure what my passion was. She stopped, and she goes,
"Well, I think your passion is people."

People? My passion is people? At first, when she said this, I wanted to both automatically say, yes, you're correct, that is a logical response. But I also wanted to stop and say, can people be a passion? I reflected on this in all the farthest recesses of my mind, and frankly, maybe it is my passion. I have this weird thing where I love to understand people. I love to see inside of peoples' heads. I have always thrived on talking to people and understanding. Understanding is another thing I am really obsessed with. Not like, I need to understand everything and I place myself above other people because I understand more than them..or anything like that, but I like to gain perspective. I like to step back and look at the world through other peoples' eyes and sometimes, I like to look at peoples' lives through THEIR eyes. If they let me.

I also do really crazy things sometimes. People might say I'm a people pleaser and I am always trying to please people and do nice things for people and I guess to some extent, that is true. But I don't think I'm one of those people who is constantly in need of pleasing people, or does it for self gain. I think I just really like doing nice things for other people. The past few years, I've gotten into this thing where I just really love to let people know what they mean to me. I really like to go out of my way to find out things that will make someone happy, and then go out of my way to do those things or make those things happen. Happiness has such a stark value in my life, and maybe because I spent so long worrying about other peoples' happiness instead of my own, now I've reached this point where other peoples' happiness plays a large role in affecting MY happiness. It was a trade-off I made when I realized that wow, maybe my happiness IS important. And no, I don't rely on other people being happy for me to be able to be happy. But I love seeing other people happy. Sometimes I do crazy things like go and sidewalk chalk peoples' driveways with stupid stuff so they can have that random bit of happiness to come home to. Sometimes I make CD's for people when I should be doing other things. Sometimes I drive people out to eat even when I can't go..and then I go back and pick them up. Sometimes I do stupid things that when I look at them a foot away from my own perspective, I'm not really sure why I do them. It's not that I think if i didn't do these things, peopl wouldn't like me. I think, I just really like to do nice things for people. I'm kind of confused by this, and I'm not entirely sure what I mean, but I just thought it was worth expressing.

So, maybe people are my passion. I love making friends, and trying to understand people. I love telling stories to make people laugh. I love being my own person, and finding things about me that I like, but finding them in other people. I love trying to identify what makes me love someone, and trying to identify little things about people without asking. True, maybe all of these things are crazy, or illogical, or who even knows what, but in the bigger picture of it, they're the things that help make me exactly the way I am.

Now that I'm realizing these things about myself, it makes me want to leave even less. Going to a place where all of it is uncharted territory is kind of weird. I'm going to go and everyone is going to be someone I have the chance to get to know. There's no, "Oh we've known each other for 14 years" or "Oh, remember that time in 4th grade when you did that thing.." or "Oh, gosh, I can't be their friend because they dated so and so." (Not that I actually say all those things, but I'm trying to make a point.) I mean, yes, all of those things might happen after spending some time at college. I might make friends I want to keep and friends I don't. I might meet people who want nothing to do with me, and maybe that's okay. But it's going to be an adventure, and maybe I'm going to be able to delve even deeper into being passionate and discover new things about myself, other people, and understanding.

And I was thinking about how leaving this week for the LEAD program is kind of like a test run. It's like a crash course in missing people and meeting people, and yeah, it's all God-based so it's a little different, AND they're taking my phone away so the people I have talked to everyday for the past two months I will not be able to be in contact with. However, on a general note for the entire thing..I kind of like it. People keep asking me if I'm excited, and sometimes I want to say, "Well of course I am!" and sometimes I want to say flatly, "No. Why should I be?" And that's what life is like. It's the great paradox. I can be both excited, and homesick for the people here before I even leave.

But you know what's nice? Knowing that there are going to be people there that will want to get to know me.
And what's even nicer? Knowing that there are people here when I get back who already do.

I think my passion has nothing (and everything) to do with me.
It's the people in my life who have inspired it, and the people in my life who will keep it thriving.