Reason said that going into outer space was a bad idea.  Reason said that a human shouldn’t be able to run a 4 minute mile.  Reason said that there was no way that we’d take pictures from a different planet in our solar system and then send them back to earth. Reason says that art is probably not a viable career, and that we should pursue an education to be engineers and accountants. Reason says that a high school dropout with poor reading and math skills shouldn’t go on to be one of the world’s top earners and leaders, worth over 4 billion dollars (Richard Branson.)

Alfred Matthew Yankovic was told that he should be an architect early in his life. He lists this as among the worst career advice he was ever given. He went to college and got his degree in architecture.   3 years into a very practical, reasonable course of study, he came to the conclusion that he just didn’t have a passion for it.  He graduated, but decided to give music and humor a shot.  We’re probably almost all familiar with “Weird Al” now, and the work that he has done. “Mandatory Fun” debuted at number 1 on the Billboard top 200, and was his third top 10 album.

If humans weren’t passionate creatures, we wouldn’t do half of the things we do.  We also wouldn’t be where we are today as a society without passion.  We wouldn’t run marathons, chase and photograph storms, or make art. Instead of shooting for the stars, we would keep our feet safely planted on the ground, working for pensions and job security.

Humans are passionate creatures though. We need to pursue our passions to be happy. It’s part of what makes us great, part of what makes us feel alive. When we answer our soul’s calling, we tend to what it actually means to be alive.

Working a 9-5 with the hopes that you don’t die, so that some day you can retire is no way to live a life. It’s also not how we reach our potential, it’s not how we find our own place in the world.

I try to teach my kids to find their passions, and to follow them for as long as they can. As a parent, I do everything I can to facilitate that in a safe way. The thing is though that I don’t do it myself. I tell them to do it, but I don’t actually do it myself. Knowing that people, especially my own family, will remember what I did long after they forget what I said, makes me think about how I’m not truly teaching them to follow their passions. I tell them one thing, but do another. Reason says to stay put, provide, and stay safe, even if it means feeling bitter & depressed. Which message am I sending my children?

We can be great. We can do hard things, we can do great things. As humans, we can do things that up to this point have proven to be impossible. We are more than our current surroundings. We can be who we feel we are.  We don’t have to be what somebody else thinks we should be. We are more than what we do. Who we are is what should drive us to do what we do.

Reason and practicality have their place. It’s probably not with the stars though.  Passion is what got us there.