Some of you might have already heard this expression. Some others not yet. This could easily seem a sentence told by one of the hundred motivational speakers that move around doing conference to motivate the people.
However, this is a quote from Albert Einstein.
How could someone like Einstein, who I’m sure none of us would have said that he was a normal person, that he could define himself like that? And there he is, arguing that he has never had any special talent, but he always was too curious, extremely curious. He use to have an infinite curiosity that helped him understand, that help him dig up further in order to find something that others would have never found.
I frequently ask myself “what are you passionate about?”. As an answer, the usual “I have not found yet anything that interests me enough”.
Does this mean that I’m done? That I won’t get anywhere? Does this mean that without passion there won’t be any success? Some may say yes, others may be. But most of us will agree that without passion there is no success.
And from my point of view that is true, due to if you don’t give yourself completely, no matter what you do, you won’t reach the point of excellence needed to be successful. However, I don’t believe that passion will come out of nowhere one day and surprise me. Passion needs to be sought. Therefore, a new question arises: “how can I find the lead motive of my life? That thing that could enthusiast me?”
Einstein had it easy: just be curious
Never stop being curious, to ask yourself “what comes after that?”. Only being curious you will be able to find whatever awakes your passions and enthusiasm to work with/for. Curiosity will help you see further and find that thing that will fulfil you and turn you into a passionate of your job/life.
Einstein had it both: Passion and curiosity. In his case, those two variables got into a retroalimented cycle where one was feeding from the other and vice versa. As a result we had one of the best geniuses ever.
Attached below you can find a link from a TEDxTalk (educational talks from different profile of people about different topics) where the speaker advocates for the passion, the feeling, as the variables to lead to the success of anything you may challenge yourself with. According to his speech, whoever puts his/her heart on the task, they will succeed.
http://www.ted.com/talks/tony_robbins_asks_why_we_do_what_we_do.html
If you had the chance to listen it, or at least part of it, you will probably ask yourself: “and mine? where is my passion? why don’t I have it?”
During the last few months, I have heard in the news, read in the newspapers and articles that we currently live in a society without motivation, without feelings. Behind we have left years of fight. Fight for freedom, for rights, for a more open society, as our parents had to.
I believe they might be right. Actually, I don’t want to believe so, but I’m afraid this is true. Our generation was born in a placid and growing environment, where we have had and lived much more than our parents/grandparents could have never imagined.
Could that be the reason why we do not have this fighting soul? This passion without limits and, consequently, we are not able to react to what is happening nowadays?
Social movements such as 15-M or “anti-evictions platform” might be intense, even quite famous in the media, but not powerful enough to change the status quo we are in. The political change does not exist indeed.
What is even worse, I’m afraid that these social movements are empowered only by the fear of survival, the fear of losing everything one has. However, what if we would go back to the situation we were 3 years ago? Would they fight against a system that we can see is rotten from inside?
L’emigrant
Knowthing 