During our stay in Chengdu, we were hosted at The Friends House, a great place managed by a Chinese couple who promotes the English language and gathers every week Chinese people willing to speak English. These people like the English language and the reason may be that most of them also like to travel. So we took part in their weekly meetup to share about our great adventure. During this meetup I also met a Chinese student who was afraid that she would not find a job she likes because she does not like the subject of her studies which was kind of imposed by her parents. She was afraid she was not on the “good” path, that her studies were leading her to a path that she would regret for the rest of her life. She did not know what to do instead and thought it was not normal. She was stressed out that she did not have a passion to follow.
It made me think about this video of Terri Trespicio filmed at a TEDx conference. It addresses the subject of research of one’s passion. Today everyone feels compelled to have a passion. Social pressure drives us to seek it desperately! What could be more terrifying than being in front of someone who asks you what your passion is and you cannot answer? You feel like a boring person without any substance, because our goal, defined by the society, is supposed to move towards this passion, and if we cannot, we miss our life. And yet! Terri Trespicio shows us that passion is not intended to be a plan, a strategy. Passion is not a job, a sport or a hobby. It is the strength and energy that we will give in any activity that we do. And moreover, it will arise when our energy and effort meet someone’s needs. She concludes by saying that to live a life full of meaning and value we do not need to follow our passion, it is our passion that follows us!
Having said that, do not miss a minute of this inspiring video:
Interesting… I feel the need to comment on that but don’t know how to phrase what I’m thinking of. I’ll be back 🙂