A good life is a life that produces something. I have to very careful here because “producing” doesn’t necessarily mean some kind of physical product, like the infamous “widget.” A product may be an idea, perhaps an idea that changes the world, or at least part of the world, for good. The product might be interpersonal, where someone is meaningfully helped in life. The product might be some kind of physical movement, like dance, drama, or chiropractic where the movement is good for people. And, of course, the product might be some kind of widget. A life without a product is not worth living. Sadly, many people do not have a product in their lives despite their having worked very hard at something or as the result that they haven’t worked very hard at something. Let’s start with passion.
Passion
Let me explain these three words before I say more about the product. First, the passion. Passion is one of those words that is undefinable, like I have written about before, most importantly the words feeling, love, wisdom, meaning, and many other psychological/philosophical terms. Recall the known universe is composed of (at least) three undefined terms: time, distance, and mass. We all know what time and distance are, and we might say that mass is something like physical stuff (sorry physicists; I’m doing my best here). We know what these elements are but they are not defined. Velocity is defined as distance over time, but distance and time are not defined. Likewise, feelings, as we use the term is that which emanates from our inner self or soul, but there I have used another undefined term. All of this talk is about the centrality of many concepts and words that represent those concepts that are real but undefined. Passion is undefined although we know what it is and we know what it does, just like we understand feelings, time, and love.
Passion is some kind of mixture of feelings that themselves are comprised of the four elements of feelings: physical sensation, emotion, cognition, and activity. One has passion when he or she “feels” a desire for something good. God for the person and good for others. Thus, passion leads to something good…or ideally should lead to something good. We may have passion for a football team, a country, physical work, play, or any number of ideas, things, or activities. We can even have passion for something that is not real, like a TV character who somehow inspires us to this undefined element of passion. If we don’t have passion, we can never have a product. Many people fail to find a passion in life. I am dealing with such a person in my current practice.
Jake has no interest in anything. He likes to play video games and is often on his cell phone playing or rambling through the Internet, but he has no interest in doing anything good. I’m sure, somewhere down inside of him, he has a real core self that is pure and godly, but beyond this esoteric understanding of Jake, I see no interest in anything that has any lasting value. He is like many young men: he likes sex and he likes money, but even these likes are quite fleeting because he has neither at the present time because he doesn’t know how to nurture his passion. Jake came to me because he was “depressed” but that word, that diagnosis, does him no good because it is just a statement of his lacking passion. On the other hand, I know many men who have very specific passions in life including boating, fishing, hunting, dancing, playing golf, interpersonal connectedness, raising children, working hard at a secretarial job, gardening, and writing. My own primary passion these years if for writing although I am equally passionate about therapy and a few other secondary passions like basketball and minor carpentry. Passion is great, but passion is not enough. You have to have purpose.
Purpose
While passion is undefined and something you can only understand by observation and by feeling, purpose is quite specific. Simply put, purpose is the drive that put passion to work so that there can be a product. Purpose is movement, whether by mind or body, that pushes one’s passion into something real and meaningful. I have to be careful about using the term “real” here because real could be quite esoteric, like an idea that could change the world, or it could be real like painting a house. I know, for instance a professional painter who is passionate about his work and can’t wait until he can return to “the wall,” as he calls it. The purpose of John’s passion is to pain well and finish well. Likewise the purpose I have in this present blog is to be of some service, but as I write these words, I have not completed a product, which will hopefully be a document of some use to someone.
Sam is a really smart guy. He is also an analyst by nature (you’ll have to read the analyst blog), which means that he loves problems to solve. The other day I was with him in a situation that had a kind of conundrum, which perplexed him but also intrigued him. The dilemma we had at the moment had no significant value in the world at large, but it consumed Sam for the moments that we were uncertain as to what we should do in the situation we were in. At first, I thought I could recommend a course of action, namely how I saw the dilemma, but he would have none of it because he was so taken by the problem that he could have spent hours just contemplating what he (or we) should do. I gave Sam as much time as I could genuinely give him and then said that I thought it was best that he take his course of action. He was slightly upset with me because I evidently didn’t want to muse about what he (we) might do. Many people are like Sam, musing, thinking, feeling, dreaming, wondering, or analyzing. Behind their musing and such is a deep passion for something. In Sam’s case, his passion is to solve problems. But to my mind he has never solved any significant problem in his life and has spent hours and years musing. Some people get lost in the things they own but they are not really passionate about things, while other people are passionate about relationships while not having any, and still others are passionate about ideas but never find one that leads to a product.
I also know of many people who have passion and purpose and go farther with it. Fist, however, before they actually do anything, they achieve some sort of skill at the doing this passion. I have a friend my age who is passionate about several things, one of which is water skiing. A couple years ago he water skied some 100-plus times over the summer. Furthermore, he is passionate about helping people learn to water ski and even more passionate about have weekly get-togethers where everybody talks, plays, eats, and water skies. I know of a man who is passionate about matters theological, another matters psychological, and another matters that have to do with construction. In all of these man there is some product, whether intellectual, relational, or physically productive. While many men get stuck in the first stage because they don’t have passion to do anything, many more get stuck in the second stage because they are willing to step forth and produce something.
Product
As central as passion is as a reflection of one’s soul, and as fun as it is to muse and consider this passion and what might be done with it, life is ultimately not meaningful if one does not have a product. As noted, the product be of almost any form, but it has to be something more than passion, which is beautiful, and purpose, which is fun. That having been said, it takes a number of things to move from passion and purpose to product. In a nutshell, it takes trial and error, or more accurately, many trials and many errors. Even more importantly, it takes the difficult experience of being misunderstood, misjudged, corrected, or challenged. You see why so few people get beyond passion and purpose: no one likes to make mistakes and no one likes to be criticized. Let me put some meat on the bones of this passion leads to purpose leads to product.
- Mahatma Gandhi was a failure for most of his life. He failed in South Africa where his work began. He failed in India for decades. He failed in keeping India united instead of splitting into Pakistan and India. But his passion led to purpose, which in turn led to product: the freeing of 600 million Indians from British rule.
- Martin Luther King was largely a failure. We remember his “dream” speech, which was wonderful, of course, and the peace marches he led. But he did not succeed during his lifetime, and his legacy continues strong where his product is still unfolding.
- Sojourner Truth, a very significant Black woman in the 19th century who said, “Ain’t I a woman?” when questioned about her beliefs. Read about her. She had passion, purpose, and did something.
But the people who actually do something, actually have a product in their lives don’t have to be these well-known people. Most are not well-known, nor do they want to be. They just want to do something important, something good in life, maybe like:
- Helping a challenged child learn to walk or talk
- Be a recovering alcoholic and help others to recover
- Write a song that is good for one person, one family, or one country
May you find your passion in life, purpose to do something, and then do something. People will love you. People will hate you. But it’s not about people loving or hating you. It is about the passion that God has given you that needs to be given to the world in the form of product.