Tending Your Passion

I’ve been making records for seven years now, the last three of which, I’ve done it full-time. Many of my friends are entering five to ten years of full-time music, and one thing that keeps coming up in our conversations is that it feels different than it used to. Not bad different, just different.

When you first start pursuing your dream, it’s like a flame that’s been doused with gasoline. I remember in the 8th grade when I learned how to play The Cranberries’ “Zombie” on the guitar. I played that song a million times, each time being just as fun as the last. That’s when passion for something feels like a fire. But what happens when you run out of gas? When you can’t spend every minute talking about your passion like you did at the start?

Today, I feel like my passion for helping people achieve their dream is more like embers in the bottom of the fire. It’s strong and will burn for a long time, but it’s not like it was seven years ago. To me, it’s better. It’s healthier. Now, I feel like I focus on what really matters, instead of my own agenda. I’m not saying that you should stop chasing that youthful passion, but be willing to let it deepen and evolve, or else you could wind up bouncing around from thing to thing and look back at a bunch of burn piles over the years.

It’s still hard to tend my fire, my passion. To make sure it will burn for the long run, and not just quick and bright. Last year I got pretty close to burn out (pun intended). I was logging too many hours, over too many months, and became really zapped. While there are still spurts of insaneness, I know better my limits. It does my passion (and life) no good to work crazy long hours for several months. I can’t live that way and last.

I encourage you, just because it feels different, just because you don’t feel a youthful passion for being a musician, does not mean you are not passionate anymore. It may just mean your passion grew up. That it’s coming from a healthier place. A good question to ask is, “If I never did ____ again, would I miss it?” If the answer is yes, it probably means you still have a passion. Your passion just may be more like the embers at the bottom of the fire.