The trick to blending work and play, lies not in what you do, but in how you view what you do. See work as play and see play as important – super, very important. Don’t do what you love, do what you are.
Yesterday someone asked me: “What is the best part of your life on the Gili Islands compared to your previous life in The Netherlands?” I dint even had to think for one second and answered: “That my job doesn’t feel like a job anymore. I absolutely love every aspect of having my own business (besides doing accounting, I absolutely hate doing accounting). Although it can be very challenging to run a business 1) with your partner in crime 2) in a foreign country 3) with a different culture 4) away from your friends and family, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
It sounds so easy right: ‘just follow your passion’. But sometimes in life it’s as simple as that.
To follow your passion simply means to begin to do what you love or have always wanted of doing, whether it be writing, painting, cooking, traveling, bodybuilding, etc. Screw the self-doubt, the lack of confidence, the comparing yourselves to social media-famous people who have thousands of followers doing what you aspire to do.
Follow your passion because aside from the cliché “lifetime of regret” you are not engaging in that one thing that could make you feel the most alive. Not following your passion is doing a disservice to the world. Hiding yourself prevents you connecting with communicating with others who share your passion. It alienates others who might marvel at your work, or better, become inspired by it.
And even worst, you are doing a disservice to yourself by neatly putting your passions away in a box labeled “things I’ll get to if I had more time, money, or talent,” When really, the time is now because you don’t even know what you are capable of yet. So tell me, what’s your passion?