Follow Your Passion

“If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is is the one you are living. Wherever you are, if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you all the time”. Joseph Campbell

Last Saturday morning, I watched an interview on CBS that piqued my interest and got me thinking about following your passion. Mark Linen, an African American began an online baking company, leaving behind his earlier dream of graphic design and his job of driving a truck to pay his bills. His company name is “Brotha Bakes” and baking was his passion since watching his mom “perform her magic with sugar, eggs, flour and a few other simple ingredients”. Linen felt God wanted something else for him and he wanted to inspire his young sons and create a legacy for them.

He fills his jars with signature cakes creatively named Choco Khan, Banana Ross, Mariah Carrot and Reddie Murphy (red velvet cake) along with special brownies.

My son Keith discovered his passion in a different way, sort of by accident. He was floundering in his twenties, not really knowing what he wanted to do. Keith tried auto sales, puppy sales and even a stint as a personal trainer. A chance meeting at the gym with our Allstate insurance broker who offered him a sales position and free training led him to discover his passion–he loved the insurance business!

I started thinking about my bliss that I discovered in the past two years—writing. Writing has always been part of my life. I was a French major in college and wrote many comparative literature essays during that time. My first job after college was secretary to the Social Science editor at Cambridge University Press. Part of my duties was to read manuscripts and write synopsis. As a paralegal, I was responsible for writing briefs and memoranda of law.

Even in elementary school, I was fascinated with words and excelled at sentence diagramming, a lost art. (I still cringe when I hear “I should have went” instead of the correct “I should have gone”).

My sister Jill loved to write and frame creative poems as birthday gifts. These were treasured by friends and family who received one. Unfortunately, she never wrote one for me. She later started a business called Jill’s Jingles, for which I became her grammar consultant (unpaid, of course). Jill would write poems for candle lighting ceremonies at bar mitzvahs, birthdays and anniversary poems and even erotic poems for a nurse to send to her doctor/lover. Who knew?

However, I never realized writing was my passion until I began writing my blog in January, 2019. If you follow my blog, you know that I write a lot about not having had a voice in my younger years. Part of that stemmed from being the shy twin and not having the confidence to stand up for myself.

Now, with my blog, I not only have a voice, but I also have an audience, people who seem to enjoy what I write. What a wonderful feeling to read your positive comments and to hear that you look forward to reading my posts! This creative writing is different that the writing I did for my jobs in the past and I am loving every minute of it.

Even in Judaism, the Torah gives us the same advice, to follow your bliss. The question “Which is the right path for man to choose for himself” is answered as follows: “Whatever is harmonious for the one who does it and harmonious for other people”.

You may be asking yourself, “How do I find my bliss? I haven’t a clue”. Joseph Campbell, mythologist, writer and teacher first coined the phrase follow your bliss in his book “Hero With a Thousand Faces”. He meant pursuing who you really are and understanding your connection to the human family. Campbell was also referring to losing yourself in the rapture of life’s experience.

In order to find your bliss, you need what Campbell called a “sacred space; or a place of creative incubation; a quiet space in your mind; a room or a certain hour in the day; a place where you can bring forth what you are and what you might be”. Try to disconnect with the world around you–no distractions, no negative news programs; silence the constant parade of thoughts.

Be patient with yourself–do not have an agenda or a plan. Tapping into your quiet space is learned through practice. Face your fear of failure and judgment head on and let them go.

Your next question may very well be, “am I too old to follow my bliss?” Au contraire, mon amie. One of the gifts so valuable about getting older is that competition and comparison mean much less than before. “It is immersion in the experience and surrender to the moment of creativity and joy that are valuable”. Stephanie Raffelock

The art of making something whether it is a special meal or a scrapbook or a garden or a photograph creates joy which creates a sense of purpose–to create our personal best.

Don’t waste another moment. Now is the perfect time for destination joy! XO Penny

Resources

How to Find Your Bliss: Joseph Campbell On What it Takes to Have a Fulfilling Life Brainpickings.org

Finding the Roadmap to Your Destination Joy thetimelifeblog.com

Follow Your Bliss Sideroadcoaching.ca

Are You Too Old To Follow Your Bliss by Stephanie Raffelock Sixtyandme.com