Passion

Recently, an experience led me to write this. While I was waiting for a friend, I accidentally ran into an acquaintance the other day. As we were catching up over a cup of coffee I realized that a lot had changed for her. She was into various 'activities' for the need of fitting into the 'cool and hep' culture. She was justifying her actions which were definitely 'shocking', as one might call them. And throughout the talk I had a feeling that her experiences were utter waste of precious time, talent and life. From my perspective this isn't how life is to be utilized. Probably what she is doing makes more sense to her. But then the question remains that what exactly drives, rather pushes us, to the extremes of trying to fit in? Be it a group, a class, a community, a city, a nation or a species, we always want to fit in. Conformity, of all sorts, is the key word here. In this struggle to gain public acceptance we forget the bottomline of life. Very few people question their reason for existance and even fewer strive to find the answers. If you ask me, it's a process. Initial questions lead one to think and wonder, then when one starts digging more into his/her life, wonderful new insights are unearthed. I've personally gone through this initial process of restlessness and unanswered questions. Through all that, I realized one thing. It is so important to find one's passion in life. It really is. This might sound totally disconnected from what I've been saying, but it actually has a direct connection to what I've been talking about. When one has a passion in life, he makes his own path. He is sure of what he wants. He is centred. It's ironic how passion can actually make one dispassionate towards other trivial issues. With a passion in life the mind is more focussed on fruitful actions than presenting superficial facades of self projected to the world. There is a definite purpose in everything. Passion is a force that pulls us out of the viscious circle of meaningless existence. Channeling our energies towards the correct passion can do wonders for us and for those around us. Why, then, do people still prefer the typical existence of trying to fit in like a jigsaw puzzle piece? I would say, to provide us with examples. Contrasting lives of others stimulates one to search further till one arrives at the lifestyle he/she truly wants. Perhaps all this is just another piece of philosophy or perhaps others out there are meant to be examples of monotonous behavior so that more like me can find our passion. Afterall, it might not be such a bad thing that most of us live the way we do. It might just be a blessing, still in disguise.