finding passion, part 7: flow

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #7: When was the last time you were in a state of flow, in the zone and totally lost track of time? What were you doing?

To be quite honest, I'm having a difficult time remembering the last time that happened on any significant scale. Perhaps that's a sad commentary, but it's been quite a while since I was so into something that it absorbed me completely.  I find the current lack of that in my life rather disquieting.  

But the question is not asking how long it's been; it's asking what the activity was.  So I shall attempt to summon an answer. 

Editing, I suppose.  As in part 6, I can easily get into a sort of flow regarding the editing/typesetting of documents.  Also, I used to become absorbed in math projects/research/homework when in school, and I do still get some of that same excitement and engagement when one of my grad-school friends asks me a crunchy math question.  

And, of course, dance.  For sanity maintenance I go out dancing once a week, and usually have no idea what time it is until they call for the last song.  Dance is a huge part of who I am.  It rejuvenates me, it makes me happy, it connects with me on a very visceral level. 


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude, part 4: skills, part 5: heroes, part 6: obsession.

finding passion, part 6: obsession

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #6: When was the last time you massively over-delivered on something?  What was it and why did you work so damn hard?

For work, I think this would have to be a recent powerpoint presentation I had the opportunity to put together for a long-term project.  I spent days obsessing over very specific animations and tweaking everything to deliver the information in the best possible way.  I got completely absorbed in the design of the thing, and even spent a lot of my own time at home and on my commute working on it, and I was inordinately proud of it. 

Why did I work so damn hard?  Because it was fun.  Because for whatever reason I intensely enjoy reformatting data into digestible forms and designing visuals to succinctly convey information.

The last personal project that I remember becoming completely obsessed with was when I was rewriting and reformatting my résumé.  I'm a huge fan of LaTeX, an incredibly powerful typesetting system, and wrote my own style file for my household's résumés.  Again, I spent tons of time at home and on commutes working on it and tweaking all the fiddly bits.  I'd spend hours researching online about effective résumé presentation guidelines and principles.  I'd look up and hours would have passed while I was absorbed in the project.  

Why did I put so much work into that?  It wasn't really because of how important a résumé is in one's professional life, though that's a perk.  Fundamentally, it was because of how passionate I felt about presenting the requisite information in the most effective way possible.

Hmm.  There seems to be a trend here.  


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude, part 4: skills, part 5: heroes.

finding passion, part 5: heroes

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #5: Who do you look up to?  Who are your mentors?  Who inspires you?  Why?

Aaaaaand we're back.  I've been a bad blogger about updating for a while now, and it's time to pick up this thread again.  

In no particular order, these are the people who I feel admiration for today.  The list might change tomorrow.  These are the people who make my heart catch in my throat if I imagine that I have the opportunity to sit down to lunch with them.  

• Robert, the best tango instructor in the universe.  Maybe in other universes, too. 
• Don, my kick-ass math tutor and friend from my undergrad years.  He was in the military, and then decided to study math.  'Cuz it's fun.  He helped me to truly grok a lot of the higher-level coursework, and we had so many great discussions.

• Melissa, my feminist blogger hero.  She has so much strength, the ability to beautifully articulate so many important sentiments that can be so darn hard to express, and has put so much work into making her blog into a safe space for everyone.  I admire her from the very depths of my being.  

• Leo, of course.  All bloggers everywhere admire Leo, as far as I can tell.  For his success, for his eloquently simple and peaceful perspective on life, and for his ability to cut out all the noise and focus on what's really important. 
• My grandfather.  He's incredibly strong, kind, and perseverant.  With a snide sense of humor so subtle that it can take days to even realize he'd made a joke.  But it was a damn good one.

• Gala, for being unabashedly fabulous, glittery, and in love with herself. 
• And of course, Nikola Tesla.  For being an amazingly radical scientist whom history seems to have largely overlooked.  Also Barbara McClintock.  Same reason.

Who inspires you?


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude, part 4: skills.

finding passion, part 4: skills

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #4: What are you ridiculously good at?  What are your precious gifts?

Hoo boy.  These certainly are getting to be trickier.  I don't know that there's anything I'd describe myself as being ridiculously good at.  So let's drop the modifier for now.

What am I just good at?  No matter how silly or seemingly irrelevant it is?

• dancing, in various forms
• working with some animals (mostly horses)
• cooking
• writing
• proofreading/editing/typesetting
• presenting
• throwing parties
• planning events
• grasping abstract mathematical concepts
• seeing patterns
• listening to people
• DDR (yes, really.  Silly but true)
• touch-typing
• giving massages
• being a student
• making lists
• memorizing things

It seems that I'm good at physical expression, learning, planning, and working with words.  Hmm.  This... will have to do for now.  Next!

What are you good at?


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude.

finding passion, part 3: gratitude

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #3: What do people thank you for?

This one was exceedingly difficult.  I am generally rather unobservant when it comes to myself, and so at first blush I couldn't think of a darn thing in answer to this question.  I'm sure it's happened, but I don't seem to have remembered any instances of it.

After chatting with a few people and doing some deep introspection, I came up with this marginally satisfactory assortment of items:

• listening/discussing life issues
• emotional support
• cooking
• hospitality (throwing parties, having people over, etc.)
• helping work through problems
• being a sounding board/devil's advocate

Most of these items seem to pertain to conversations.  There is likely to be some serious sample bias base simply on what I was thinking about today and the interactions I've had in the past short while.  However, it's still an interesting result, and hopefully will yield further insights down the line. 

What are you thanked for?


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility.

finding passion, part 2: invincibility

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #2: What do you do that makes you feel invincible?

Invincible, in this context, I take to mean guaranteed of success, unable to fail.  Feeling so good that nothing could possibly go wrong.  This isn't a feeling that I'm especially familiar with, outside of the bliss of losing oneself in a dance with a great partner and a great shared dynamic.  But let's see what I can come up with.  As with all of these questions, I'm doing my best to not over-think the answers, and just write down whatever comes to mind.

• dancing
• climbing to the top of a mountain on horseback
• massive decluttering
• editing
• writing, to a lesser extent

...I'm not entirely sure what conclusions to draw from this particular list.  Hopefully it will all come together further along in the process.

What makes you feel invincible, dear reader?


Previous question: part 1:happiness.

finding passion, part 1: happiness

The other day, I stumbled upon Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  To stop being mediocre.  To release other people's dreams and find their own.  Good stuff.

If you sign up for their email list, you get a bunch of nifty pdf resources.  Normally I resent content being held hostage for my email address, but I feel like this one may actually have relevant and useful emails.  We'll see.

Regardless, the free-but-with-a-catch documents are remarkable, and I'll be working my way through some of them in the coming months.  Today I want to embark upon a beauty called 27 Questions to Find Your Passion.  As you know, my sense of dissatisfaction and ennui is the driving force behind this blog, and I need to get serious about figuring out what I am actually here to do.  Passion-finding resources seem like a good place to start.

So, we have question #1: What makes you happiest in your life?  What excites you?

Without thinking too much, I made a list.  Much on it is silly, some is obvious, and some seems strange.  It's in no particular order, unless you count the order in which items occurred to me as I was writing.  It's incomplete and changing and comprised of the things that I happened to write down one afternoon.  Here goes.

Things that make me happy:

• dancing
• cooking
• good food
• cloudy, gloomy skies
• good company
• hot baths
• stretching
• sweet-smelling flowers
• acceptance
• fuzzy socks
• cuddles
• reading a good book
• music
• creating
• making a positive impact
• wearing fabulous hats
• feeling exhausted
• the smell of horses
• spontaneity
• fresh air
• cold drinks on a hot day
• planning
• going new places

I find it interesting that most things on the list have nothing to do with material possessions.   Presumably as long as I have enough socks, hats, and a kitchen to cook in, I'll be perfectly happy with my stuff.  Interesting.  My happy list is mostly about doing things, getting outside, traveling, and being with people.  

Presumably, the questions will get progressively more challenging to answer.  I'm endeavoring to not read ahead too much, and to just address each question.  

What makes you happy?