by Pat Ballard

Created on: July 15, 2008   Last Updated: August 18, 2010

Passions of Life

What is your passion in life? Do you have one? Do you worry that you aren't more passionate about life than you are? Or as passionate as someone you know? Our passion for life is most likely what we loved doing as a child. For me, my greatest passion as a child was to read. If there wasn't a book around, and, even, a lot of times when there was, I'd get pen and paper and write my own stories or poems. And if I weren't doing that, I'd probably be somewhere daydreaming about some far-off place that I had read about. Or making up stories on the spot to tell my siblings and cousins. Overshadowing everything I did, as a child, was the story-telling world.

My sister, Ellen, loved being outside. She was usually doing something very active. Playing ball with our brothers, chasing them, walking the woods with our grandmother, or just running around by herself. If she weren't busy with that, she'd sit in the swing and stare into space. Probably conjuring up some game to play with the guys. Ellen is still an "outdoors person" to a certain degree. She can outshoot any of the guys around her. Just give her a riffle and you'd better not tick her off!

My sister, Jerri, loved domestic "stuff." She busied herself playing dolls and house. As a very young child, she literally helped keep mom's house tidy with her "house playing." Then there were the times when she'd get inspired and write a beautiful poem. But to this day, Jerri is a meticulous housekeeper. I've always told her she was like our mom, in that she can just walk through the house and it kind of falls in place in her wake. This follows through with her business mind. She is very organized and detailed in her business life.

But as we get older, we forget about the things that brought us such joy as children. We lose our "natural" urges of having fun, and replace them with things that we have "logically" told ourselves that we should do. Things we force ourselves to do that has nothing to do with our passion of life.

For instance, when I was younger I thought I'd love to play the piano. I'd even dream at night that I'd sit down at a piano and start playing the most beautiful music this side of Heaven. To me, this was a sign that if I could just get my hands on a piano, I knew I could teach myself to play. I'd made this statement in front of my mother-in-law enough that one day, she gave me a piano. And, guess what? After a few weeks of pecking out songs, I lost interest. I never really had the desire to

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