Before we conclude our ‘Lost and Found’ series, let’s think again about some of the things we’ve touched on over recent months.

Do you believe you have:
 A need to do something that is special to you and helps to define who you are?
 A need to pursue something you really enjoy doing?
 A need to be appreciated for what you uniquely bring to the world?

I do. I also believe we all enter the world with certain core characteristics and traits. But for one reason or another many of us inadvertently bury these characteristics under a mountain of other people’s expectations.

Would you like to discover – or re-discover – your passion? Do you have a dream you’ve secretly harboured – never sharing it, never giving yourself permission to pursue it?

Today, I challenge you to take a deliberate step forward: firstly to unearth that passion from underneath whatever is concealing it; then to allow yourself to follow it, work at it, engage with it.

No matter how far you have to travel, the journey always starts with a single step. Find something you’d like to do, learn, see or accomplish and, even in a small way, move toward it. Buy a book, enroll in a class, set 15 minutes aside each day to focus on it, join a club or find a friend who has a similar interest.

Remember that being good at something is absolutely not required for this exercise and, importantly, this thing you do should have nothing do to with wealth, fame or power. These are things that relate to the world’s expectations and everyone else’s assessment of who you are and how worthwhile you are. You are already 100% worthwhile, you may just need to re-examine the signposts to make sure you’re on the right road.

Think about you as a child when the world was new and innocence told you that everything was possible; what did you like to do? What was your favourite game or pastime? Did you excel in a particular area at school?

Think about you as a teenager when you dared to look forward to a future where you could live out your dreams; What did you really want to do with your life before Mum and Dad told you to get a real job?

Then fast forward to the end of your life… what will you be really pleased you did; or what would you really regret not doing?

As you contemplate these stages of your life, there will be at least one thing – and probably many things - that will shine out as being the key to finding your passion.

It seems to me that passion is like a balloon we blow up with all the invigoration of youth. As the years go by the balloon, under increasing external pressure, gradually exhales until at last it lies, deflated and breathless, at our feet. Ideally we should never let it deflate. But even deflated, it’s possible to breathe new life into it. There is no better time than now to starting blowing!

So take the plunge. Step out and do this thing for you – to discover who you are. It will help to reveal how far your life can take you and help to transform you into the person you were always designed to be.

Are you already pursuing your passion? Your responsibility is to help others find their’s – to dig over the embers that have not quite gone cold and help blow some winds of change to ignite them into full flame. Your husband, your parents, your children, your friends. Imagine what this world would be like if we all ignited our passion and enthusiastically and unswervingly lived that passion?

And take time out every now and again to review your life and where you’re going. Take stock of the things you’ve tried and those you haven’t. There may be some things you have overlooked, or some interesting possibilities you have forgotten about because you’ve been distracted along the way.

Australian guitarist, singer and song writer Joe Camilleri talked about his continued success as a musician and how he keeps himself on track. He said “You’ve got to go back every now and then to see if you’ve dropped anything. Then go ‘I’ll have that’”. Interestingly he said “I keep coming back to what I was doing when I was 16.”

Do you need to keep coming back to when you were 16, or 7 – or some other age that represents to you the promise of all that you are or all that you could be?

A few years ago I came across a quote by Italian born American composer Gian Carlo Menotti. He said:

“Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do”

Imagine what it will be like when we reach heaven and, instead of showing us the life we could have had led but didn’t, God says “well done – good and faithful servant - you have lived fully the life I had intended for you”.



Don’t forget to visit again next month for a new Ignite Life article.

© Wendy Rush 2007