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When was the last time you took a risk (big or small), and pushed your own boundaries — socially, professionally, or otherwise? Were you satisfied with the outcome?

First off, I should start with stating that I am not a risk-taker, by preference. I’m the kind of guy that likes to just let life happen, carpe diem isn’t part of my Latin vocabulary. I prefer the safe, the known and the comfortable.

So there it is: the Daily Prompt has found yet another of my character flaws. Two, even, if you count self-deprecation as a bad habit that I also can’t seem to resist.

But that’s part of why this blog is here, isn’t it? The “envelope” has been pushing me, I’m pushing it back.

I was tempted to pass on this prompt, initially, because after a fair bit of thought, I just couldn’t come up with any risks I’d consciously decided to take recently. Not without climbing into the way-back machine and going embarrassingly deep into the past. Risk-aversion can be a creeping disease.

Does the board game (“Risk™”) count?

“Hiding in my room, safe within my womb,
I touch no one and no one touches me.”

Too dramatic, Mr. Simon. Maudlin even. Introverts just take crap too damn seriously.

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But! I have been taking a risk.

Each of these posts is a bit of risk–because there are friends and family known to be lurking and reading and following, and I’m exposing things that even the person who knows me best likely wasn’t aware of. And writing at all is always a risk; here’s stuff I’ve created, don’t hate it. What if I (gasp) try writing something much more ‘serious’ some day? Would anyone buy any of it? Would it matter if they didn’t?

So it is a stretch. And a risk. Not a huge one, but one that will continue day after day.

Right now, I feel like risking lunch.

Not Bandit, more like Goose

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Passion Q4

4. Mindset

What would you have to believe about yourself to live a passionate life?

I would have to believe I was capable of moving forward. I’d have to find and believe in the right idea, solution, the right inspiration for me.

To stay where I am, I would have to believe…
I’d just have to believe in complacency, the easiest thing in the world. Just let the world keep going by, day by day. Accept the status quo, this isn’t so bad. Take the lazy cop out.

In order to make my passion happen, I would have to believe…
That I was free to pursue it. Thar I was ready to begin, that I had the ability or at least the aptitude.

If I believed that (see above), my next step would be…
At that point inspiration would take over, wouldn’t it? We’re talking a passion here, it wants to be explored, it’s a joy to explore.

(I do hope these questions grow a little less pop-psych at some point, and begin to offer some actual, practical advice? We’ll see.)

Passion Q3

3. Dreams Come True

 What will you do when you’ve found your passion?

Enjoy it. My ‘dream’ passion is something I can work at, without feeling drudgery. Something I can learn, without feeling the dread of ‘time to study’. Something that can engage my attention, captivate, inspire me to stay up all night doing it.

When I find my passion, I will finally…

Breathe a sigh of relief. It’s wonderful when those moments of a-ha epiphany come over you, is it really possible to feel that way all the time? A lot of the time?

When I’m living the life of my dreams, I will…

Be less doubtful and less stressed and much, much more positive.

I haven’t found my passion yet, so it’s okay for me to…

Continue looking, nibbling away at the ideas I already have, searching for ones I might not have thought of. Is there an “end”? Should there ever be?

Complacency has cost me in the past; perhaps the evolution and the search needs to be continuous. Or maybe the way I think about me has always been wrong.

 

Side note: last night I was reading up on Python (a computer language) and doing some writing about my earliest passion/love, good old horrible Benton Harbor BASIC. I did a little ‘remember when’ blogging, and really wanted to explore more Python this morning.

But when I woke up, I didn’t feel like doing that, downloading Python, any more. Fear, dread, what if I’m not good at it self-doubt? Or just laziness?

Don’t know. It’s after lunch. I could kill a little more time dorking around with writing for this hypothetical maybe-someday blog.

But I think I’ll go get started on it now, I need some sort of nudge.

 

Update:

After an hour, I’m feeling like a break. Could be from the stroke, could be from eyesight…but I’m feeling the aches and pains from the computer chair, and developing a headache (haven’t had a really bad headache for…a year?). At this point I would just rather read a book.

And my typing (never blazing-fast, even while working as a coder in the past) seems to have really, really deteriorated. Or maybe I’m just out of practice and noticing it more?

Or maybe I’m looking for excuses? I really do not know. Not ‘groking’ this, no discovery-joy pushing me on. Yet.

Am I just hoping for a miracle cure much too quickly?

Anyway, going to take a short break and read a little, watch some idiot box. See how I feel in an hour, my inner Fatalist is probably driving right now. I can’t do this, it’s too hard, we’re dooooooooommmed.

Shut up dude, it’s just an unfamiliar syntax, we’ve dealt with this before. The documentation is better-than-usual, really. But the ‘for Dummies’ books (and suchlike) are really, really out of date…so we’re on our own, stop whining Inner Fatalist. Grow a pair.

I’ll be back. When I figure out what I want to begin coding, as a first project, and dig into ‘how to make this happen’. As always, computers are best learned by doing, if you don’t know how, start fiddling with it until your figure everything out.

Note that despite the aches-and-pains whining, I’m still typing? What does that mean?

 

Fuggit, I’ll talk to Inner Fatalist in a bit.

A-ha! Discovered a few applicable tutorials, and boosted the font size in the shell GUI (more readable—> less headaches??) Back to hacking!

(Some hours later): Okay, this syntax is just different enough to trip over lots and lots of silly things, until I get used to [sillything] needing syntax {SillyThing} (Not an actual example, by the way—just that I still know how to code, no surprise, but I’m rusty and I will be tripping over syntax constantly until I get enough practice.

Now to figure out something worthwhile to code—and practice, practice, practice. Looks worth it, Python’s a powerful bugger.

 

Heh, I’ve still got a Fortran ’77 reference manual on the shelf. Fortran!!! 1977!!!

 

(And that’s the last of the “canned” blog text on this topic, future bloggins will be “live”).

Passion Q2

2. End Goal

How will I know when I’m living a passionate life?

 I can only list some of the properties of happiness and inspiration. Not all of these things would be required as “stop, you’ve made it”, an end goal. It would be enough to be making progress toward that vaguely-painted (non-existent?) finish line. Some properties that would indicate progress:

• Work that’s independent of place (or at least a happily short commute)
• Work that inspires, creates a-ha moments—pleased to do more every day
• Work that provides for my family—not wealth, but security and independence
• Reduction of stress and worries
• Increased inspiration and excitement
• Life that feels smooth, rather than a continuous uphill climb.

Does listing things indicate a computer brain, or just terrible writing? Why would it matter if I write poorly, will anyone ever read this thing but me?

When I find my passion, my life will be…

More joyful in general, more independent, more easy-going, less prone to first-world worries.

When I find my passion, I will feel…

Deeply relieved and inspired for the future.

I will know I’ve found my passion when…

I can grab life and shake it, without knocking any sharp edges loose.

 

If you don’t know what you’re after, or where you’re going, chances are that you won’t end up where you want to be.

That’s certainly a worry here, as a lot of these questions are conceptual…and a lot of the answers somewhat vague. I only hope that more writing and thought produces more clarity, eventually. Is it odd that I don’t feel strong enough, as a writer, about expressing myself in these answers? I keep re-reading the text in the book, looking for clues (someone else’s answers)…wrong, wrong, feels wrong.

I’ll work on dealing more straight from the deck, in the future. Sorry, me.

Passion

No, not the heavy-breathing “the internet is for porn” kind of passion, by my passion. What kind of things do I love doing (besides idiot box)…and besides gaming. As might be pretty obvious by now, I was Jonesing for something to do with my days off.

I’ll be sharing my passion-seeking project (several posts already written, a lot of self-psych and not much result yet). I’ve picked WordPress and Blogging back up, right around the same time (how to not get anything done: start too many new projects at once, right?)

Following the general outline of
Find Your Passion: 25 Questions You Must Ask Yourself (Henji Juntilla)

(and whoah, never paste directly from another website? heh…lemme fix that html…there we go.)

Not going to try to sell anybody a book, here, my review would not be that good…but it will make a pretty good outline structure for my overall find-my-passion project (or it won’t, and be a complete waste of time).