The Truth About Passion & Finding Yourself

Passion =  Want + Desire x Dedication  = $ucce$$
                        The Need to Feed

Not exactly E=MC2...  Still, I like how it looks, sounds and reads.  Find your need.  It is the reason your passion makes you want something so bad you'll dedicate everything towards making IT happen.  And, if you can't find it or do it than look somewhere else...  The only prerequisite to passion is an epiphany.

This is my mathematical understanding of $ucce$$.  However, the end result of $ucce$$ implies some talent.  Passion by itself will not make you $ucce$$ful.  Wanting just makes you pathetic.  Desire is empty all by itself.  Dedication is the most active of the equation parts.  There is a lot of random want in the world and there is a lot of misused desire in the world.  It helps if you are actually good at what you do.  How do you get good?  How do you get better?  By repetition and concentration.  There are thousands and thousands of cooks ready to take your job if you fail.  Actually, not take.  That's too light in the adjective department.  Devour you.  Pillage your career.  Cast you aside and trample your fantasy...  That should push you...  It sounds trite, but there will always be someone better than you, and perhaps they are close at hand.  Push thyself.  Find thyself.

The key is sometime, anytime, put in the effort towards finding yourself.  It's not easy and everyone's  journey is different but they are all difficult.  A singular journey that only those committed to a greater good feel compelled to go through.  Monks, castaways, Crusaders, writers, chefs - all have at least one thing in common.  A reason to find themselves.  A greater purpose and a greater good.  It matters not that one may be more eloquent or more brave or more secluded than the others - what matters is that which lies beating within the breast of someone who is truly alive.  Alive with determination and passionate existence.

The preamble to all this is epiphany.  You can't get to any level of professionalism and technique without tasting it somewhere or realizing it somehow or just being in IT'S presence.  A epiphany is not a planned event.  You'll know when it hits you.  The skies may not part, the angels may have fallen silent and the trumpets could blare sharp - the sound effects don't matter.  What do you feel in your heart...?

I remember my epiphanies....  I'm still having them because I'm putting myself at risk all the time.  Learning and stretching the boundaries of my abilities, sometimes failing but always adjusting as I go so as to make my failures seem like progress.  'Sometimes you have to fake it in order to make it'.  A man named Les Moore told me that years ago.  Faking it means having a little experience in something and getting more out of a little than most people could ever manage from a lot.  I'm to the point that I can make things happen.  A lot of repetition.  Much experience.  Some ingenuity.  Total belief and concentration. Not letting others derail your locomotive.  Doing thing the right way because it's the right way...

Looking back on my career I wouldn't have done it any differently.  I'm where I need to be.  I have my need - the need to feed - my passion, wants and desires.  My dedication is a result of those actions.  Success, by all human nature, is measured in how you affect people and create your legacy.  Will what you believe in carry on even if you can't carry on, anymore?

Go forth, find yourself - and conquer the world.  Peace.

~R