The short answer? To have experience.
My cousin came into town the other day. To watch her grandson play in a sport. Curling was the sport. He is only 16. Curling, although popular in Canada, is not a huge sport with young people. So, in order to pursue this particular passion, the family must travel all over the province on weekends to enter “out of town” tournaments.
They are very proud of him. And they should be. He has become very good at what he is doing. His team came in second place. They blew away a lot of their competition. But alas, in the final match, his own team was “blown away”. The kids were a little bit older, a little bit more experienced, and had a little bit more coaching…
There is a lot that one can glean from that. Hard work and dedication really does pay off. If you pursue your goals, your passion, you can succeed. But success is always relative. There will always, always be someone better than you. And there will always be someone who is not yet where you are at.
Competitions challenge you. They really make you step-up your game. But competitions are fleeting. And who wins and who doesn’t really has more to do with who enters at that moment than “who is the best in the world”. It’s easy to come in first or second place when there’s only two competitors. And it’s easy to come in first place if you “sandbag”, by always entering competitions where the players are all less skilled or qualified than you are.
So it can’t be about winning and losing. It’s too easy to rig it in your favour. Or it’s too easy to compare yourself to the “experts”, which makes you feel small and incompetent so that you get discouraged and never even begin to try.
Why do it?
Why does this “kid” pursue his passion? Why are his parents so supportive? It’s not going to make him wealthy. Monetarily. Even the biggest and the best in this particular sport are happy if they simply get all of their expenses covered.
It builds character
You learn how to win gracefully. You learn how to lose gracefully.
You learn that there will always be another competition. There will always be someone who is oh, so much better than you. And there will always be those who are where you were 5 years ago.
You learn compassion.
You learn how difficult the journey can be at times, such that when you see others struggling you understand exactly what they’re going through. You offer encouragement. You tell them you were once there too. You offer support – a few tips here and there that worked for you.
You learn how to set goals, and how to achieve them
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Every time you play in a competition you evaluate where you’re at. What you need to do to improve. Where to focus your attention that will lead to the best results.
It creates abundance.
Abundance is not just about monetary rewards. if you decide to plant a garden, as I did a number of years ago.. in the first year or two while you are “learning your trade”, your garden will provide for you, but it probably won’t save you any money. In fact, some of those vegetables you grow and consume will probably cost you five times more than if your had purchased them in the local grocery store. So why do it?
Well, by year 3 or 4, if you continue, you will learn a few “secrets” to make your yield more abundant. You will harvest more crops. But even more importantly.. you will figure out how to automate some of your “systems” so that it is not so labour intensive. Saving you time. And you will spend less money on “inputs”. You have already invested in many of the tools you need.. such as planting pots and hoses and watering systems. You might even have a compost going on so you don’t have to invest in fertilizer. Your yield will increase and your input costs will go down on a relative basis.
You will grow as a person
Every “garden” is unique. So everyone’s “system” will be a little bit different. But as you pursue your passion, you will run into other people who have a similar passion. And you will compare notes. And they will give you ideas. And you will give them ideas. Some you will implement yourself. Some you will forget about. But with every exchange you will grow. You will learn. You will improve.
At what age did we stop pursuing our own passions?
The parents of this teenager sacrifice their weekends, their retirement savings, their own personal hobbies or projects, to drive around the province so that their teenager can pursue his passion. This is not all bad. In fact, some of this is quality time spent with a teenager that some parents never get to share. They will all remember this time together for the rest of their lives.
But when did we, as “adults”, stop pursuing our own passions? Why do we think it’s “not just ok”, but a wonderful gift we can give, and an upstanding example we can set for our children, by helping them pursue their own passion(s)? And yet “because we’re adults”, we have to take life more seriously, buckle down, and put our own passions on the back-burner…until when…our retirement?
We are here for the experience
Many adults go through this 30-year tunnel where they sacrifice their own passions by working at some career or some job that doesn’t make them “wealthy”, but pays all the bills and hopefully puts enough away so that they can retire before the age of 65.
From there they sometimes invest in vacations in sunny locations and sign up for tours and have “experiences”. Which is wonderful. I love hearing travel stories from those who have given up the sedentary life in order to see the world.
The problem is that many of these people, because of the line of work they chose, or an unforeseen illness, or an accident of some sort, never get to make it to that “light at the end of the tunnel”. They never get to take the tours, or have the “experiences” they so deeply desire.
They still have experiences. We are all, always, having “experiences”. But wouldn’t it be nice to sit down and choose our experiences? Or at least the subject matter? What the experience is about?
Start by setting some goals for yourself.
This could be in the form of a “bucket list”. What are the ten things you would like to experience in the next few years? Make some of them smaller… easily achievable. And make some of them larger. Such that you really have to make some harder decisions and do some shifting around of priorities in order to make them happen.
Setting goals creates structure. And it creates a benchmark. It promotes accountability, And we can measure our progress. When we look back, we can pat ourselves on the back, seeing how far we have come.
Setting goals, or finding a focus of our attention, does not dictate exactly how things are going to unfold. When we travel, we can choose the destination, but we can never pre-select everything we are going to experience when we get there. First of all, that wouldn’t be “fun”. What would be the point? Secondly, we are co-creators in our world. Which means our future changes based on the degree and substance of our own participation. What we put into it is what we get out of it. In every moment of every day.
What we focus on grows larger. What we distance ourselves from shrinks. This is a law of the universe.
Don’t forget to enjoy the journey, or the “experience”, along the way. Remember, that is why you are here….
Our “bucket list”, or “dream board”, or “goal setting exercise” is a wonderful focusing tool. It makes us sit down and really reflect on our priorities. Sometimes it is more about the process of doing it that has more value than what the end goals turn out to be. In fact, many times I have set out on the path to reaching a goal only to find a twist in the road and a completely different path opens up for me. But, when I am “paying attention”, this experience is always much better and more rewarding than the experience I thought I was going to have. When we follow our hearts and set out on our journey, and allow other opportunities to present themselves, we will always be rewarded.
Keep Going
The crucial, critical element in all of this is momentum. There needs to be movement. It’s very difficult to get out of a stuck place when you are no longer in motion. And in order not to get “stuck in the mud”, it is wise to always keep moving. Towards your goal. Towards your destination. Just learn to be flexible. About where it is that you are going. And you will surprise yourself.
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