My How Things Change

It's weird what can happen to a person over a year. Heck over a few months. 

All my life I have been a very passionate person. At times I felt like I had all of this passion inside of me waiting to be used and I had no idea how to direct it.

At times it has gotten me into trouble, other times I got into huge arguments.

I was/am passionate about a lot of things: my country, the military, my family, my faith, my friends, etc.  I love learning, reading, writing, the arts, music, politics, etc. What I believe in, what I love is what I am passionate about.

I realize though you can't live 24/7 with this passion going on. This may sound strange to some of you, but imagine if you are the Energizer Bunny with a Solar Battery that is constantly being charged and going on and on and on...

You get the idea.

You can't live life like it is a constant battle. Like you are taking on the next challenge. Many will probably disagree with me and that's fine with me. I understand, I used to be that passionate. But eventually you have to realize that if you keep going down that route, you will burn out.

I realized it these past few months. I am full of life and love to live life, but I know people who always seem to be "on."  It seems they never take time to relax or sit back and enjoy life.  No, to them life is a constant battle and one must always live with Passion 24/7, night and day, awake or asleep. That's exhausting.

Why?

What is wrong with taking time with life? What is wrong with having free time? These people seem to need to feel every waking minute of there day learning something, doing something, etc.  Don't they want to have time to relax, to be at peace, to think about the fun stuff of life, etc...

Why must it be this constant battle where everything must always get fixed, where we must always focus on an injustice or something that is terrible and evil and wrong? Why do we constantly have to fill every moment of our lives to the point where we are exhausted?

Is it bad to look at the fun little silly things that are going on in life? Why is it considered "degrading oneself" to  love fashion or sport for example? Why must we be wary of those that are different in thought than us?

I finally got an answer after 2 months.

They don't want to face themselves.  It sounds crazy, but it's true.  When we fill up our lives with constant activity, we don't take time for ourselves and we don't take time to examine ourselves. We need that time for ourselves to not only take care of our physical health, but our mental health especially. Sometimes people use all that activity and all that passion for fixing/changing problems they see in the world as a way to distract themselves from their own problems, their own issues. Hate to break it to you, that won't help you with yourself at the end of the day.

This semester although I have had a filled schedule, I forced myself to take some time for myself because of my health. I think it helped a lot too. I learned a lot about myself too and not only did I face the baggage I had, I faced my nasty, not so good side.

I'm not perfect. : /

After facing the the rest of the baggae (there was a little left) and coming to terms that at times I can be nasty and judgemental. It's hard facing tha truth.

Through discovering this, I dscovered some friends of mine were staying active, leanring, working, and fixing everything else but themselves. Some of them seem to live with this chip on their shoulder and they can't let it go because they don't know how to.

I know it's not easy, but it is very liberating and it helps a lot. Because of this discovery I feel a lot morrelaxed and at ease. It's a shame that those that I know are still trapped in the world were they have to escape from their problems.

Having passion is wonderful, more people need to have passion in their life. But to have it 24/7, although it sounds wonderful it is also time consuming and becomes very exhausting. Being able to relax and enjoy oneself is also a wonderful thing.