From Words to Action

Could you take your pas­sion in life, right now, and do it for the rest of your life, regard­less of whether it ever earned a sin­gle cent?  Would you con­tinue to share your knowl­edge with the world for free?  Is it worth sac­ri­fic­ing for?

The answers to these ques­tions will help you iden­tify your pas­sion and deter­mine just how pas­sion­ate you truly are.  Words are great, but what about action?

I’ve been think­ing for the past two years about work and pas­sion — includ­ing the rela­tion­ship between the two. I’m look­ing at the idea of a zero-hour work­week, and the exis­tence of true pas­sion.  A place where you are so pas­sion­ate about what you do — your skills, tal­ents and abil­i­ties that you share and con­tribute to the world — that you could care less if you ever earned another cent for it, and you would still sac­ri­fice your time and pos­si­bly money to con­tribute that knowl­edge to oth­ers. Mix this idea with one where your work and play are indis­tin­guish­able from each other and you’re paid to merely do what you love.  This is the Pas­sion­ate Zero-Hour Workweek.

What is great­est about this is that any­one can do it. If and only if it is truly your pas­sion and oth­ers can see that pas­sion in you. There are peo­ple who do this every­day, and they are not all mil­lion­aires, but they are all happy — at least in a human sense, and at least tem­porar­ily. These con­cepts do, at first blush, leave God out. How­ever for a Chris­t­ian, this makes you reliant on God to help — for God to step toward the mid­dle as you approach from the other side — and helps build your rela­tion­ship with Him further.

I’ve found it takes a few rest­less nights and a cou­ple heart­breaks to really start to wrap your head around the whole con­cept. Some­times, you can’t fully get the idea until you’re at the bot­tom look­ing up. At some point, when you get it, and decide you’re ded­i­cated enough and pas­sion­ate enough to go for it — you’ll jump off the div­ing board at the top of this sky­scraper of thought and you’ll trust God and trust (some of) your built-in instincts to build your own para­chute on the way down, deploy­ing it into the wind with enough time to glide over the ocean that sep­a­rates thinkers from doers and finally come to rest on the other side in the Promised Land.

Turn your thoughts into action and succeed.