Sami Holden explores the endless possibilities that become available when you decide to follow your passion.
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My writing partner and I found ourselves tucked away in a hotel room in December bouncing ideas off of each other, taking breaks to sing pop songs loudly, and sustain ourselves with chocolate bars. We would leave our respective hotel rooms (or whoever’s room we set up camp in) to go to lectures because we were at a nine day long residency for our MFA writing program at UCR Palm Desert. Outside was beautiful California weather, a far departure from the Wisconsin weather I’m used to and the Michigan weather she was heading home to. Hours upon hours were spent discussing characters we had created that don’t exist. On the one night we went out for an extra special dinner, we found ourselves outlining another TV pilot we wanted to write. It wasn’t work to us, though. We spent half of the time laughing so hard we were near tears.
Back in the room we watched various comedy pilots. What makes Garfunkel and Oates be able to pull off raunchy yet adorable? Where could we find an example of Larry David’s heavily outlined scripts for Curb Your Enthusiasm? Were there any other comedies that currently were following this structure? Just how much did the pilot for It’s Always Sunny cost to make? We were pausing these programs every few moments to research these questions. I think we both had an “aha” moment by realizing we finally found something in our lives that made sense – writing for the screen. Along my own self-discovery, there have been some things that I’ve found to be an integral part of realizing one’s own passion.
Passion is what makes all of us unique and dynamic individuals. It’s what gives that purpose when waking up in the morning. Above all else, passion is just an attractive quality. People who are living their lives passionately are living their lives authentically. Those are the individuals who walk in a room, and draw people towards them – that je ne sais quoi factor. Passion provides an endless topic to bring to the table. One of my passions is watching a lot of TV which sometimes feels weird when in a large group conversation my response is an eager “I’ve seen that!” when multiple shows are mentioned. I can say without hesitation that my main personal passion is writing. When I’m in my writing zone, I can’t hear what people are saying to me. It’s as if the entire outer world melts away. At the same time I feel like I have no choice, I must get the words out.
Even if this never works out as my primary career, I would be worse off for not at least making an attempt. There are many things that are scary about following your passion. We often hear that dreams are silly, right? Passion doesn’t guarantee a job. Working in a writers’ room just doesn’t happen, something I’m keenly well aware of. However, if it truly is your passion it will be painful for you to escape its grips. I’ve found myself awake at 4 am haunted by portions of whatever I’m working on that I must complete at that moment. I’ll work on something until I hate it, no longer want to see it for a while, and then I fall back in love with it.
It can be challenging at times to explain the compulsive drive of your individual passion to others. I now have become that person that picks apart all of what I consider to be effective in movies with excitement. Basically, I ruin movies for everyone around me. My “aha” moments about characters seem strange. I wake up in the middle of the night to write down quotes from Scrubs for a critical analysis. I sit at home on weekends with my Netflix or Amazon Prime and love every minute of it. What matters the most is if you are growing as a person through your own exploration of whatever you feel passionate about.
Following your passion provides the opportunity to seek out a community of like-minded people who are passionate about similar things. I’ve been able to find this “home” of sorts through my graduate school program. My fellow classmates understand what I’m trying to achieve and actively encourage me because they are in that same process of living passionately. I can count on my writing partner to know where my strange writerly thoughts are coming from. We each know when we need a break from the process. We know how to reset and then get back to work. My school happens to be low-residency, so a vast majority of the time I’m bouncing ideas off of classmates through on-line message boards or via Skype. I’ve also been interactive with various on-line writers communities . When you find your passion, community can exist in various forms and is not bound by geography. One of my best writer friends, for example, lives in England. It is so much fun to be passionate about something and then to find someone else who says “me too.”
Passion then builds upon passion. What starts out as a skeleton of an idea can become this huge concept when you find others who you can riff off of. I have yet to encounter anything more fun. Giving yourself permission to establish what moves you is the first step, and will cause a ripple effect where others’ feel they too can follow their passion.
Knowing that there is something out there that can so strongly move a person is what energizes and enriches lives. Let’s stop thinking that knowing everything about dinosaurs or building model airplanes are silly. Let’s stop looking down upon pastimes that we don’t fully understand. If a child loves art, can we stop pointing out how everyone won’t be the next Picasso or Degas? What matters most is that in finding a passion, that person can tap into what moves them which can in turn make an individual feel more confident and secure. Passion is key to self-discovery.
It’s important that we begin encouraging each others’ passions. I’m not naïve to believe that having your primary occupation be your passion is realistic for everyone (although a passionate work force would be ideal for employers), but JK Rowling still found time to write Harry Potter. This is something that needs to be encouraged from youth onward. Let’s instead encourage our friends and family to follow their heart. Without following your passion in some capacity, even as a hobby, you’re preventing the exploration of who you are as a whole.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Love, love, love this article. Thank you. I am just getting back to my passion. Now you go girl!