Passion

"Passion rebuilds the world for the youth.

It makes all things alive and significant." 

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I can't decide if I'm a person of passion or not... I know I have a lot of passion, but passion, implies, in my mind anyway, a near obsession with something. Consider Saint Paul (who, if you know him, you'd know he was a zealot... passionate, pretty much to a fault.) 

Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on...

A few years ago, being a person of passion was explained to me as being a person of one thing... striving forward towards a goal, which may have many facets, but one aim. I can't decide if I am passionate about anything without adding in my loves of other things into it.

For example, I love literature. I love reading and learning. So... could you say reading and learning is my passion... well... when a girl, I became obsessed with reading science books. I read every book in my library on the animal kingdoms, which lead to me thinking about animals which didn't exist anymore... so I switched to dinosaurs and paleontology, which lead to archaeology, which lead to Egyptology, which lead to Greek and Roman mythology, which lead to the classics... etc. etc. etc.

Most of you are probably just thinking me a total nerd at this point... totally justified, but stick with me.

So, some of you may know I became a teacher... and all throughout those uninspiring education classes, teachers are meant to say they are "teachers of children"... They are meant to love young people and want to change their lives. I admit, it was there a bit, but I really loved literature. I wanted to show everyone how much literature could change their lives... I had a soapbox, and a classroom could be my podium.

But the funny thing is about working with young people, working to help them become little adults... is, that when you are serving people, they change you.

I started becoming more interested in learning theory and adolescent psychology. I became interested in legals issues around parents and carers, the psychological and sociological effects of education on life's circumstances and vice versa... I became somewhat obsessed with finding ways to take the sometimes horrific contexts these young people find themselves in, and try to turn them into opportunities for them to not only better themselves, but change their communities for the better.

I'm still in love with literature, but I'm more in love with it because of it's ability to increase empathy, to inspire, instruct, and encourage through the words of authors, through poetry, through imagery, through struggling through rock bottom situations with characters.

But this desire to help students has also made me want to help their communities, to learn about their families, to want to know more about counselling and psychology, to want to know about how to set up and work with non-profit organisations and set up community organisations that work with the government and with NGOs...

In my heart, one passion leads to another which leads to another. Nothing seems focused. My brain, my heart are two giant title-waves swallowing everything... they're Scylla and Charybdis. My appetite for knowledge never stops...

But I think one thing has changed since I started teaching 5 years ago... my heart. I am now focused on loving other people with my job and fighting for them, serving them, cheering them on, mentoring them... I think about what I can give, how much I can offer, and not just what I'll get or how great I'll be considered when I do give.

I may get too distracted to ever become a teacher-author, or the Founder of an amazing Educational Charity, or run a grass-roots community project... but I think here and there will be kernels of my passion spread abroad and hopefully a few of them will take root and make a difference.

Here are some things Writer and Literature have taught me that I carry around with me in my back pocket... If I'm running around seeming scattered... you know why ;)

"What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?" ~ George Eliot

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T.S. Elliot

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." ~ from "Ulysses," A.L. Tennyson