Passion and purpose

This post was written by my friend and jewelry designer, Cari Taylor on her blog The Craft Between. She gave me permission to repost it here.

Last Friday I attended a day-long "Conference for Women" workshop that mainly dealt with assertiveness and self-esteem training for women, but there was one topic that really held my attention: the one about passion and purpose. I've struggled with this concept all my life; last year when I was asked by (then) Scoutie Girl blogger/creator Jan to write a post about passion, it was really the first time I was able to put it into words. Here's what I said then:

"Passion is the biggest gift of my life. I spent years trying to find that ‘IT’ thing–the thing that people around me seemed to have that made them get-up the morning, lose themselves in, and could talk about for hours. I tried crochet, woodworking, graphic design, ceramics–nothing stuck. I had this artist stuck inside of me without an outlet to create. Very frustrating.

And just as I was about to give up and resign myself to a boring 8-5 life with no pizzazz–passion found me. As soon as I stopped looking for it, there it was, disguised as a pair of cheap pliers and a roll of 20 gauge craft wire I picked up on a whim. In those first few weeks experimenting with my new hobby, the fog just suddenly lifted. I had so many jewelry design ideas, I couldn’t sketch them out fast enough. I knew in that moment that what I was feeling was passion.

That elusive, enviable, abstract thing, was finally within me. It sounds very dramatic, but passion hit me on the head and brought me to life and continues to be such a surprising force.

Passion gives me purpose and unbelievable energy. Passion has brought me a sense of self-reliance I didn’t have before, a sense of ownership and confidence that I can take anywhere I go. It gives me the strength to work a full-time day job on top of building a business, and gets me through any bad day.

Handcrafted and passion are inseparable. The spirit of independence and creation is alive in every product an artist makes, every detail.

Whether it’s bags, clothing, jewelry, drawings, photographs, textiles–that essence of passion is ingrained within and comes straight from the artist to you. That’s such a big part of it; feeling the passion is one thing, but creating something and sharing it with the world and the people who appreciate it completes the circle."

Is all that still true? Big Yes. The only difference is my 'day job' is much more satisfying now that I've changed departments--which only serves to help me be more creative off hours. Bottom line: life is too short to not be living your passion. Go find it....ASAP.