Complacency and Loss of Appreciation
Passion Alone Won’t Make You Skilled
I “published” my first short story when I was 8 — quotation marks around “published” because it was in the school paper, so not exactly a wide distribution.
Seeing my work in print cemented my life goals. It’s always been writing for me. I’ve loved it for so long that I don’t remember a time when I didn’t.
But there are downsides to long relationships, even when they’re the meant-to-be type.
It Isn’t Like in the Love Stories
I don’t believe in soulmates — I feel that the notion tries too hard to make something simple out of something complex.
What I do believe in are callings because those don’t come with the implication that you can’t screw it up. A calling can be a career, a hobby, a pet, or a person. It can be anything, and most people have more than one.
All This Talk of Niches
Countless articles on this platform talk about the necessity of finding your niche, your vision, your passion, if you intend to make it as a content creator.
Those articles tend to make me uncomfortable. Ignoring the fact that the word “niche” feels horribly restrictive, I tend to freeze up when people ask me what I’m passionate about because I always forget. I’ve loved writing for so long that I forget I love it.
There’s this quote I adore from To Kill Mockingbird by Harper Lee:
Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
Writing is like breathing for some of us, something that is so much a part of who we are that it doesn’t cross our minds to imagine our lives without it.
It’s the Same With People
Our loved ones mean the world to us — our proper loved ones, not the people who assume they’re our loved ones, because sometimes they aren’t the same.
The problem is that after a while of loving someone, when loving them feels as natural as breathing, the feeling fades into the background.
Sometimes you get reminders that bring the feeling back to the front of your mind. They do something charming or dumb, or you hear them laugh under the right circumstances.
Sometimes it’s a bittersweet experience. My grandfather has dementia. He’s been losing pieces of himself for years, and I’m losing him bit by bit, too. It’s really shitty that this is what it’s taken for me to value every moment I have with him.
The Big Human Flaw
As a species we have a few flaws — arguably more than a few — and calling this the big one is an exaggeration. It’s a big one, one of many.
A Limited Emotional Bandwidth
We aren’t built to constantly experience big emotions (if this is in fact not a universal truth and outs me as an unfeeling little monster, please keep it to yourselves).
Scarcity gives a thing obvious value. If big emotions were the norm, they’d not be “big” anymore; they’d be mundane . . . like the feeling of love in a longterm relationship. It isn’t that that love doesn’t have value. It’s just become expected, standard, par for the course.
If it takes the threat of loss to constantly keep love in our minds, then it’s no wonder we forget about it all the time.
It would be depressing to always worry about losing what we care about. So we take its existence for granted.
The Thing to Do About It
I am not advocating feeling big emotions all the time. I think that would be exhausting.
But sometimes we need a forced reminder that we do love that thing or that person — whether it’s because you’re debating if or if not to attend your grandmother’s latest party or your passion-project of a career is giving you grief.
I use the five ADHD motivating factors when I need a reminder, my logic being that ADHD means low dopamine, so these factors lean towards creating more of the “happy” hormone, which can only be helpful.
- Interest:
Ask your loved ones questions and uncover something about them that you find interesting. Or discuss your interests with them — they love, so they’re obliged to listen to you babble.
Think about something you find interesting in your hobby or career. Maybe you can recreate it or study it some more.
- Novelty:
Do something different with the people you love. Try a new activity, expand your horizons.
Experiment with your passion-projects. If you’re a science fiction writer, maybe write a short story where you combine science fiction with a genre with which science fiction isn’t often matched.
- Challenge:
Paintball, a complicated puzzle, a race to the end of the road, there are countless little and big challenges you can do with people.
If you type in your beloved activity online and add the word “challenge” after it, you’ll have options to choose from.
- Urgency:
Take one of the challenges from above or come up with your own and set a timer.
- Passion:
Take a moment to remember why you love this person or this activity. Meditate. Look through some photos. Admire your old work (without judgement — I’m sure your past self did the best they could).
Hell, I’ve considered sticking a sticky note that says “I love writing” to my monitor.
Whatever works for you do that.
Do I wish I’d found a passion associated with a work field that is easier to get into? Yes, but I wouldn’t give up writing for the world.
Neither would I give up the people I love, no matter how annoying and occasionally awful they are.
Complacency does not equal a loss of love.
Sometimes we just need to shake things up and remember how lucky we are.