by Patricia Gilliam

Created on: February 29, 2008

Having a passion for life isn't just an emotion but a daily decision you have to make regardless of your circumstances. These decisions can result in long-term progress in areas such as school, your career, your business, or your spiritual life. Often people can't choose what goes on around them, but the ability to react and turn bad situations around for the better is extremely important.

In my life, I think the biggest thing I had to overcome when it came to this issue was some underlying self-pity. I was never the type of person to complain out loud, but I did do a lot of inner complaining. At the time I thought it was pretty harmless, but doing that had an overall negative impact on my life.

Part of what changed my thinking was meeting people who had succeeded in life with a much worse starting point than I'd had. When you meet someone who has a genuine passion for life, it seems to just radiate out of them. You can see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. When you get around people like that, you can't help but feel pulled to do better for yourself. That's why I like having people like that in my life.

I also used to think having a passion for life involved some major life-changing event. For some people, that may be true. What helped me however was just taking little steps. I read a lot of books and talked to a lot of people, and the end result was I was able to develop a better attitude by choice. When you keep waiting around for life to change for you without taking action, there's a good chance you're going to be waiting for a long time.

You also can't worry about making mistakes in things like your career or your business. Everyone starting out has had that happen to them, and the best thing you can do is learn from it. In business, I've had a lot of ideas that failed, but over the past 5 years I've had enough go right that there's a good chance I can retire before 30. If I had let fear or what other people thought bother me, I wouldn't have made any progress.

In modern society, there's a trend of people living their life in compartments. People can shift moods as they shift roles, but finding a way to be yourself regardless to what you're doing at the time is a key to developing a passion for life. I believe that God gives us all an overall purpose in life, and just one role shouldn't be the majority of our identity. I think things get easier with time and experience, but again it takes some effort as well.

I'm definitely grateful for what I have, but I have the inner drive to help myself move forward so I can help other people as well. Taking the time to discover what you really want out of life is something not everyone does, but your overall quality of life will definitely improve. Following your passion is just worth doing, and I want to encourage you to put some effort into it. Good luck and best wishes to you!

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