Passion: unequivocally useful

I often see clients who have a difficulty identifying their unique qualities as real gifts. One in particular with whom I am currently working, has an unusual penchant for cinema. She could spend all day and evening watching movies and analyzing them. In our last session, she was able to name not only every Oscar™ Best Picture winner in chronological order for the last twenty years, but also the other films in the running for the award that she thought were better. While I was more than impressed with the depth of knowledge she possesses, she flippantly described it as just “useless information that no one really cares about.”

Isn’t it true, however, that if she defined herself as a movie expert, then her knowledge is anything but useless? That her memory and ability to catalogue this information would be vital to her career as, perhaps, a movie historian?  Isn’t film a valid art form that deserves academic attention? I can so easily see her in front of a classroom of students, sharing her knowledge, being an inspiration to others.

My client’s reluctance to visualize herself in this role stems partially from her taking on her parents’ definition of an “appropriate” career, and this is causing her a fair degree of internal conflict. The fact is, she is passionate about this topic, but fears committing herself to its study.  How many of us hold ourselves back because of similar fears?

Two quotes come to mind as I write this.  A wise person once said, “If you work at something you love, you never work another day in your life,” and a second reminds us that “It only feels like work if you’d rather be doing something else.”

My thoughts exactly.

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