When tapping on your passion, one thing that should be uppermost in
your mind is that you need to leave a legacy for others.
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When you are
young, your motivation for working and living lies in larger income, better
standards of living and in general having a good time. But as you grow older,
your priorities change. You want something more fulfilling. You seek to achieve
goals that you will be remembered for. A sense of urgency begins to set in as
time passes. And the source of your passion arises from wanting to leave behind
a legacy.
That legacy may
take the form of social change brought about by your work. Or it can be in an
enterprise or institution founded by you. Many successful businessmen set up
foundations and trusts in the pursuit of noble causes. Thus they seek to
perpetuate their name or family name for posterity. An invention or a new
process or a novel product can also enshrine the maker’s name in the books of history.
Temporal
pleasures and petty rewards do not satisfy someone working at this level. His
or her passion seeks loftier goals. The greater the goal, the more fervent the
passion. Revolutionaries and freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi and Che
Guevara struggled all their lives for the liberation of their countries. Their
ambitions encompassed the lives of millions of their countrymen. The sheer
magnitude of their legacy consumed their entire lifetime, but it was a
passionate lifetime, with every day spent in pursuit of that goal.
How do you set
about leaving behind your legacy? What is it that you feel strongly about?
Write down your strongest emotions and issues. They may even lie outside your
present work area. Start working on those issues. Educate yourself and acquire
new skills if you have to, and get to work. It may be a simple project like
improving your community, or a major reform of state laws. Remember that all
the great men and women who have brought about change were ordinary men like you
and me, but they had the power of conviction and passionate belief in their
dreams.
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