Candles Flicker, So It’s Okay if Your Passion Does Too

What happens when what you love doing ends up on hiatus?

Ever since I started writing for an audience, I started to regard my writing as a sort of like an obligation every week, I wasn’t writing because I simply enjoyed it but because I now had a reputation to uphold and a claim to guarantee. I thought that if I failed to write well, or write at all, I had no right to dabble in writing or no right to claim it as a passion.

And ever since I stopped four months ago, I’ve allowed that to be the reason not to pick it back up. Instead of a flame flickering, changing with the breeze of the present, I considered it diminished and lost. Instead of allowing myself a moment to recollect and continue, I thought I had given up and didn’t deserve to restart. I mean imagine the irony, when the topic of my writings are motivation and inspiration.

Maybe it was me buying into the 100 day challenges or write no matter what mentality that made me believe taking a hiatus wasn’t okay. Or maybe it’s because I had gotten lazy and writing was becoming more of a hassle and that in itself disqualified me from counting it a passion of mine. Nonetheless, I bought into the excuse and rolled with it. There were no repercussions you see. Well, there usually isn’t when it’s a passion. At least nothing material or visible.

But in me, I had worries, doubts, and expectations that I curated to create some author of encouragement that no one else wanted to hear from but me. I had forgotten that the reality of passion is that it is not defined by the quantity of our output or the even the scope of our influence. Instead, it’s the warmth we feel from the time and patience we’ve weaved into the scarf. It’s the tears our words induce and the resolutions our words establish. It’s the justice we uphold in the courts of law, it’s the healing and consolation our music endows. It’s the brilliance of finesse that our music displays and it’s the truth and fairness in numbers we so eagerly seek.

Passion is the sincerity felt from the pieces of our hearts we engrave in our creations. Whether we fail or succeed to produce is not the qualifier of our passions. Instead, it’s the moving of one heart, the satisfaction of one customer, and the gratitude of one stranger.

So whether you’re coming back from a hiatus or you’re fighting for another chance, what matters is that it’s still in your heart. You might have failed, placed it at the bottom of the totem pole, or just given up, but you haven’t forgotten it. It’s gnawing at you because it truly is your passion. It keeps reappearing in your life in the form of curiosity and encouragement from people around you.

All you have to do now, is stick with it. There’s no particular regiment, no quota you have to reach. It’s just a matter of acknowledging that it’s there and getting back into it.

Don’t be fearful that you might quit again because I have a hunch that it’ll come right back.

*Share this story or clapping will make my day, after all, I’m writing to empower dreamers. Want to know more about Anthony? Check out my blog.

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