Walter Isaacson, the biographer whose book on Steve Jobs was
such a sensation last year, made an interesting comment the other day that got
me really cranked up at first. He was
recalling a conversation he once had with Jobs about passion. “We talked about the fact that it isn’t just
about your damn passion,” Isaacson reportedly said, “it’s about doing something
larger than yourself. It’s about serving
this world, helping others. So if you
have a whole generation of people [who’ve been] told, ‘Oh, just follow your
passion,’ they’re going to forget that there’s some purpose in life.”
Of course, when the story was released, it
went out under the somewhat misleading and certainly manipulative headline,
“Isaacson: It’s not just about your damn
passion.” When I first saw that
headline, I was instantly incensed and had to know more. Which goes a long way towards explaining why
the media likes to be somewhat misleading and certainly manipulative.
I haven’t read Isaacson’s biography of Jobs yet, although
Anyway, for the record, I agree completely with Isaacson when
he basically equates serving others as being a person’s highest purpose in
life. I actually believe that. But I also believe that passion has a place,
an absolutely necessary and integral place, in how to best serve others. Let me give you an example from my own
experience. I spent four years as a teacher. I changed careers at thirty-eight because I
thought I was finally ready to respond to my highest calling, which I believed was
to teach teenagers how to improve their reading and writing. For those four years, I served those high
school students as best I could. I loved
and cared about the students that I taught, and I loved and cared about the
people that I worked with.
Yet, by the end of those four years, I was more miserable
than I had ever been in my life. It took a lot of soul-searching, but I finally
figured out that, without passion, serving others can still lead to unhappiness
– profound, existential unhappiness. Even
though I loved almost everyone I was around, I was miserable being a
teacher. I had no passion for teaching. Not in a classroom. Not that way.
My passion lay elsewhere.
Now, maybe there’s just something wrong with me. Trust me, I’ve considered that possibility
often. But from that experience I
learned that you can’t force yourself to serve a higher purpose; it has to be
done willingly. In fact, pure passion is
about the only thing that will get me to willingly do more than I absolutely
have to.
During an interview I did with Dorina Groves a few months
back, she showed me a tattoo on her arm which says, “Purpose produces
passion.” I think many of us, Mr. Jobs
and Mr. Isaacson included, would agree with that basic premise, if not perhaps the idea
of stitching it into your skin for all eternity. But I also think the opposite is just as
true, that passion produces purpose. I
think the two are inextricable. I think
that passion exists to lead us to our purpose, to lead us to a greater awareness
of our unique reason for being here, and to lead us to discover the work that
is ours to do. Whether you start with
passion or start with purpose isn’t anywhere near as important as just
starting.
I guess maybe the reason I took issue with Isaacson’s words
was because I couldn’t conceive of passion in a way that doesn’t ultimately
serve others. To me, the two are
intrinsically connected; they’re part of the same whole. But maybe we just define passion differently. For instance, someone who plays X-box all day
long, to the neglect of his (or her; but let’s face it, mostly his)
responsibilities, relationships with family and friends, and personal hygiene
could be said to be passionate about video games. Now I’m not judging anyone in particular, but
it’s difficult to see how that passion for playing video games is doing
anything to help others, or to serve a larger purpose, as Isaacson
suggests. And I’m not sure whether that
kind of behavior can rightly be considered a passion in its true sense. In the end, I guess I believe that many of
the things we call passions are really distractions in disguise.
In my experience, true passion always wants to lead to
something bigger, something that moves you beyond your internal selfish
interests, urges you to keep learning and growing, and bids you to share its
fruits because to contain it all to yourself is pointless. True passion inspires you to create, to act,
to build, not just for yourself, but for others as well. Feel free to use that if you want to help
tell the difference between a passion and a distraction.
So I left the teaching profession, and now I’m a
writer. Wait, you say, not so fast. How
can you lecture to us, you wonder, when you left teaching to become ‘a
writer?’ Is there an occupation more
selfish, more self-absorbed, and more self-indulgent than that of writer? How,
you ask, does that square with all this high-minded talk of serving others and
higher purposes?
And here is where I throw myself on the mercy of the court,
because I don’t know that I have a satisfactory answer. Writing is selfish, and can be
self-indulgent, especially the kind of writing I do, which is mostly foisting
my wayward thoughts, observations, and opinions unapologetically upon an
unsuspecting world. But here’s the
thing. Usually, just as I’m preparing to
flog myself to death with my trusty cat-o’-nine-tails of guilt, I’ll get a message
in the form of an email, or a comment, or a conversation, that something I’ve
written has touched someone else, has reached them in a meaningful way. And I have to hold on the self-flagellation,
and ask myself, Isn’t that a form of
serving others, too?
Much of what I write is based on things I see, or notice, or
feel, that I don’t hear other people talk about. Instead of assuming that these things exist
only for me, I write based on the assumption that these experiences are
shared. Much of what I choose to write
about is a celebration of the good in things, because I think too much passes
unrecognized through the maelstrom of daily life.
That wise old sage, Ferris Bueller, said it
best: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look
around once in a while, you could miss it.” I see my job as doing the stopping and looking
around, and appreciating what’s there, in the hopes that others might start
doing the same. I do it because I feel
like that’s what I’m supposed to do, and I’m very passionate about it. I also think that expanding the way people look
at things, or bringing a slightly different perspective can be valuable; it can
open up new ideas, new paths, new directions.
To me that’s a good thing, a helpful thing, maybe even a higher purpose
thing.
Simply put, passion is the universe telling you that you
have a job to do. Ignore the universe at
your own peril. Maybe our responsibility
as individuals is to avoid the distractions, discover what those great passions
are, and then find a way to manifest them in our lives somehow, some way. If my theory is right and you get the passion
part right, the purpose will follow like day follows night. Further, if you’re doing what you were put on
this planet to do, then many people benefit, even if it’s only because the
number of unhappy people in the world is reduced by one. After all, studies have shown that unhappy
people are one of the leading causes of misery in this world.
So yes, Mr. Isaacson, I agree; it isn’t just about your damn passion.
Neither is Steve Jobs just about Apple, nor Benjamin Frankin just about French
ladies. But they’re pretty important to
the narrative, aren’t they? Take those
things away, and those two people become a lot less interesting to write about,
no?
Okay, so then maybe we can just agree that like peanut
butter and chocolate, passion and purpose are two great tastes that taste great
together.
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| 'Hey - you got your passion in my purpose!' 'No - you got your purpose in my passion!' Or better yet, 'Hey, you got your Jobs in my Franklin!' |
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