Do you want to live a passionate life, but you’re not sure where to begin? Passion is a weighty word. In the book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert offers a perspective on this that has made me rethink my position on passion. What if, instead of following our passion, if that seems to be a struggle, we follow our curiosity? Curiosity has a much lighter connotation. It also has a gloriously varied and accepting shelf-life.
With passion, there is this pressure that it be long term and enduring, but curiosity can change on a whim. You may be curious about something and pursue it for a day and then lose interest. There’s nothing wrong with that. Then you get curious about something else and follow it down the rabbit hole as far as you would like to go. If you spend a day getting curious about something, anything really, it is a day well spent.
The concept of curiosity being highly regarded is something familiar from my children attending a montessori school. In the Montessori Method, kids are encouraged to pursue their curiosity wherever it may lead and in watching them, it seems an engaging and exciting way to live. Do as the children do. Get curious. Your passion may evade you, but there is ALWAYS something to get curious about in life!
What if, for argument’s sake, you are curious about an opportunity? What if you want to try something, but you are not sure it will work or you are not sure you will succeed? Well, I would argue that it is worth trying. Why? Even if it is a spectacular failure, you will have succeeded in pursuing your curiosity and that, regardless of the outcome, leads to a life well lived. I would rather try and have it be a huge failure than never try and fail to live.
Loving curiosity,
Nikola Rosa
