I’m stuck on this idea of passion. Again.

There is something I feel I’m lacking. So much is happening right now that is good and right, but at the same time, there’s this pervasive sense I’m missing something important. I hope I’m making the right calls and following through in the correct manner.

But I’ll never really know.

The simultaneously awesome and horrifying part of life is that once something is done, it’s in the past, forever irrevocable and certain. There are steps that can be taken to mitigate or alter, but we can never change it. And for good or bad, that’s something that is forever etched. And now that I’ve gotten that remarkably morose and depressing intro out of the way, and hopefully still have a few readers, here we go!

Random musing aside, there IS always the feeling of chasing something, aspiring to something. I wrote a post on it a while ago. It’s here if you got a minute. I’ll wait.

The take away is there are some really talented people who continually inspire me and push me to better myself and simultaneously make me question if I’m doing the right thing.

Sound familiar?

I wrote that linked post 6 months ago. And in some ways, everything has changed, and in some ways absolutely nothing is different.

I’ve graduated with a Master’s in English. but the stories I submit to journals still come back with a whole lot of edits and basic advice that I know. One of my favorites was essentially “short fiction has to be short.”

Whoah, no way!

I’ve competed at a few more tournaments and realized there are yet more basics for me to master.

And I teach karate every day and am continuously reminded that I can always be better.

It’s that double-edged sword of success and consequent realization that comes from all success. I was privileged to sit on a Black Belt testing panel yesterday (and they absolutely killed it!) and was thinking about progression and the how every step I take in life I seem to realize I know even less than I thought I did the day before. It’s humbling, exciting, and incredibly frustrating all at the same time. I spend more time realizing I’m wrong and navigating my way through tiny failures than I do making any headway or succeeding.

Or so it feels.

I know this is incorrect. And I’m sure it looks far different from the outside. Which brings us full circle, all the way back to my thoughts and ideas six months ago. Do I inspire others just like all of these passionate, driven people I’ve been fortunate to know and associate with, inspire me?

I hope so. And, just like the conclusion I came to back in January, the only thing I can do is to keep on following my passions, keep pushing hard. After all, these conceptual goals are so incredibly hard to quantify and measure it’ll drive you crazy when you try.

But we all do.

The only thing I can control is what I do, and how I do it. The one thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of watching passionate and driven people is that their path to happiness seems to be directly linked to following that passion. So I’ll keep my head down, I’ll keep on pushing, and I’ll try to keep the metaphysical quantification to a minimum.

Time to get to work.