How Not Having A Passion Is Harming Your Relationships - Page 9

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Having a passion might seem like something only available to those who don’t have to work. Passion? You ask. You have a job. You work long hours. Where would you find time for this passion? Well, it doesn’t have to take over your life. But, if you don’t have a passion, that issue itself may be affecting your life. Think about it. Without a passion you simply live to eat, sleep, and repeat. That’s it. You don’t have any surprises to look forward to. You don’t have the magic of what could be in the air. Possibilities are limited. And that can lead to depression. Don’t think about having a passion as some unrealistic dream of making millions of dollars as an artist. Think of it as an important life force. Having a passion isn’t all about the result. It is about how it affects your mindset every day and that affects all of your relationships. Here is how not having a passion is hurting your friendships and romantic relationship.

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You don’t understand those that do

You can’t possibly grasp all of the work and hopes that go into pursuing a passion. You think you can, but you just can’t unless you also have a passion. So when your friend’s manuscript gets rejected from 40 publishers, or nobody shows up to your boyfriend’s self-produced play, you just can’t emphasize on the level they need you to.

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You may not be supportive enough

Since you don’t really understand the tears, blood, and sweat that go into pursuing a passion, you also don’t realize how important the support of friends and love ones is. So you might continuously sit out your friend’s stand up comedy show or your cousin’s short story reading. You don’t realize how much that hurts them, because you haven’t had the experience of loved ones not being there for you and your passion.

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You may be jealous

It is human nature to need a passion. If you deny yourself one, that will peek out in strange and destructive ways. You might even make small, derogatory comments about other people’s passion. It is your little way of elevating yourself. You bring others down to compensate for the fact that you didn’t have the guts to go after your own dreams. So you tear theirs down.

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You assert yourself in other ways

That energy has to go somewhere. You have all of this energy inside of you that should be applied toward something important to you, but it isn’t. So instead, you might be the person who monopolizes dinner party conversations. You might be the person who big dogs others in conversation. You might let small details like getting the wrong order at a restaurant ruin your night, and make it your mission to get the server fired. All of that is just your wasted energy that you didn’t put towards a passion. You are looking for other, silly ways to assert yourself.

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Your light is out

When you don’t have a passion, you can’t really get excited about life. Everything looks dull. So in talking to friends or your boyfriend about what to do this weekend, or where to take your vacation, you just don’t seem that enthusiastic. When you don’t have a passion, on a subconscious level, you feel that life has nothing to exciting offer. That feeling is apparent in everything you do and say.

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People don’t want to be around that

People want to feel excited. People want to feel that life has the promise of surprises and limitless possibilities. They don’t want to be around someone who kills that idea for them. So anyone who does have a passion and enthusiasm for life will pull away from you.

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You disrespect others’ time

When you don’t have a passion, your free time isn’t very important. You spend it watching TV shopping or napping. People with a passion have to keep a very rigid schedule on their free time. This is the time they dedicate to their passion. But if you aren’t on that page, you don’t understand that, and you disrespect their time. You might miss a lunch date with a friend because you took a nap or simply forgot. Meanwhile, you ruined her chances at doing what she needed to do for her passion that day. And you don’t understand, because the stakes are not the same for you. You disrespect everyone’s free time, because yours is not something you’re making much of.

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You may slack off at work

If you ever wonder how many of your friends tolerate day jobs they don’t care about with a smile on their face, I can tell you. Their day job is just supporting their passion. They know that when they get off work, they get to do what they love. But it is important to them to keep a day job and pay their bills so financial stress doesn’t distract them from their passion. So they take their job seriously.

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You contribute little to the conversation

Many couples remain happy for decades because they keep life interesting and exciting. They make sure to do things they love outside of their relationship, and then they bring those stories and that excitement to their relationship. But if you just do your same old day job every day that you don’t care about and never go after something you love, you won’t have much to say at the dinner table. The spark to leave a relationship could leave like that.

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You let small inconveniences ruin your day

When you go on vacation, and don’t get the help hotel room you want, you make the life of the staff a living hell. You are grumpy the rest of the trip. That is because vacation is literally all you had to look forward to all year long. A passion gives you something to look forward to every day, but you don’t have that, so your entire happiness for the year relied on this one activity.

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You ruin the time of others

If your boyfriend or the friend you were traveling with does have a passion in their life, they are probably mostly happy. Going on vacation was just a cherry on top of a life they already enjoyed. They aren’t that upset about the hotel room or where you have dinner. So your bad mood is just ruining their trip. You almost have a responsibility to those close to you to have a passion, because it makes life so much better, and makes you so much more agreeable.

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You become a lazy listener

I have noticed that the few people in my life who never really went after a dream are not good listeners. As a coping mechanism, they have had to shut their brain off a lot. They get home from work, drink some wine, turn on the TV, and shut their brain off just to survive the day. This coping mechanism winds up seeping into conversations with other people. In fact, I think those that don’t have a passion, without even realizing it, stop listening when other people talk about their passion. It is too painful for them to hear about something they missed out on. But listening in relationships is so important, and people won’t tolerate it for long if you aren’t paying attention.

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People feel like you don’t care

As a way of protecting yourself, you don’t ask your friends how their book is going, or how their comedy career is going. You can’t watch someone’s face light up as they talk about their passion, because it reminds you that you don’t have that in your life. So you talk about the weather or bills or traffic. It makes your friends feel like you are ignoring the most important part of their life, which makes them feel like you don’t care about them.

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Money is everything. But it is nothing

When you don’t have something you really care about in your life, you need money to compensate for that. You chase things to fill the void. You might find yourself in financial strains because you just spent so much on expensive items and experiences, trying to re-create that exciting feeling you were missing by not having a passion. The funny thing is, that having a passion is free.