Purpose and Passion--the need to fulfill both

My life is a series of books read, punctuated by periods of loss: what to read next. There’s hardly a worse feeling that wanting to read but not knowing what you want to read next. Those few moments—though they may be days—of indecision correlate to a feeling of meaninglessness. I can’t imagine a life lived without books. How do people who are not literate, who do not read for pleasure satisfied? What event is the end cap to their days? What moment of bliss do they have from one day to the next? A moment of words read equates to a moment of bliss, meaning, importance—a moment that says, Life.

It’s not about purpose. Purpose and passion have a subtle difference. We all have noble purposes in life: saving souls at home or abroad, protecting the nation through service and sacrifice, providing for family and friends, making this world a safer place through the protection of our natural resources. These things drive us day to day. I find purpose in being the best wife, friend, daughter, sister; I find purpose in my job—both as teacher and coach—educating and caring for the youth of today. Daily I wake to fulfill this purpose, to make things better for as many people as I can, to know that I’ve had an affect on someone or something.

But passion?

Ah, passion. That’s a different matter. Passion is simply what gets me from day to day. Yes, my purpose in life does fill me with the lust for life. But what is it that makes me me?

Now, with Betty, there’s no nobler purpose but to love and protect family; Betty’s daily job. And Betty’s passion is easy to figure out. Betty’s life is series of cat naps. 

Provided Betty gets his nap, his devotion is to loving and protecting his family. Part of why he’s so skeptical of visitors is the simple need to protect family. No one intrudes on family—not visitor, opossum, snake, or other feline. If Betty has anything to do with it, we’re all safe. But if Betty does not fulfill his passion, his need for sleep, for happiness, well, it’s not guaranteed Betty can protect.

Such it is with me. Can I teach, coach, provide without fulfillment of my passion? Can others be committed to their purpose 100 percent without fulfilling their passions? Do you know your passion?

For me, passion is the printed word atop a blank white sheet. Passion is the ability to forget troubles, duties, life and to descend into the written word.

Me Day

Betty says, "Where's the milk?"
Seriously, this is what he does when he's waiting on food or milk. He's too lazy to sit by the food bowl, so he just flops on the mat next to the door, adjacent to his food and water. He can't even hold his head up, lazy cat.

On another line, I've had a thought resonating all day.
They say three percent of people use five to six percent of their brains. 97 percent used just three percent, and the rest goes down the drain. I'll never know which one I am, but I'd bet my last dime, 99 percent of us think we're three percent 100 percent of the time.

I've had these lyrics on my mind all day. Makes me wonder which one I am, too. I'm sure I'm not in one of those percentages because I use more the six percent. I mean, come on.

We had a nice weekend recently--a completely selfish weekend. No cell phones. No company. Just a clean house and a sleeping Betty. How nice to not have to prepare for and recover from a weekend.

P's studying all the time, so I'm engrossed in Grey's Anatomy reruns, a real constructive way to spend my time.

I'm backed up on essays, but I'm caught up on everything else. I started my first set of essays today, and I probably started on the worst possible one. It was completely amazing. I haven't been quite impressed like this since the "trentisthemantown" essay.

On to more essays.

Betty's Lack of Dead Betty

There are some positives to commuting into BFE every day. Sometimes, the 45-minute drive doesn’t seem too bad as I pass the natural beauty of the area. Lately, I’ve enjoyed the animal life. I always like seeing horses in coats in the winter. But I don’t think the alpacas have been too comfortable this winter. They don’t wear coats, I guess. I haven’t seen Flopsy (the black alpaca) having fun in a while. Usually he’s flopping his ears or rubbing his face Snow Bear style in the grass, but lately, he’s always up roaming around or simply eating. Usually I can count on Flopsy making me smile when I pass. I also haven’t seen the zebra-striped horse in a while. I’m guessing they’re keeping him in the stable or close to the stable. I look forward to when he’s back out by the road come spring. He’s beautiful even if he doesn’t do near as many amusing things as Flopsy.

So after a day of wrangling animals at work, I admire them on the way home, and then I arrive to Fat Betty at the back door, begging for food. He has some canned salmon this week, and he pushed that can all around the room until he bumped it into the wall and couldn’t get any more out. He still came back and tried later on, though. If anything, he’s persistent.

Poor Betty. He hasn’t gotten a decent day’s rest in three weeks. Yes, I say day’s because though he gets catnaps and hour-long rests, he loves to spend a whole day sleeping. Since we’ve been back at school, he hasn’t been in the house without me home, so his only hope is on the weekends. But for three weeks in a row, we’ve had company. And B does not like company.

This first time my parents were in, and it was mainly my dad he didn’t care for, though he would get startled by my mom, too.

The next week it was my friends, and he seemed to like them pretty well. He just doesn’t like his routine to be altered, and though the girls were nice to him, he was woken too many times.

Last weekend, we had three more males in the house, and the poor cat wouldn’t even come in the house.

We have come to the conclusion that he does not like men. It leads me to believe he must have been abused or harmed in the past.

But if all goes to plan, Betty will be Dead Betty for 12+ hours this Saturday.

This picture is of him one Sunday after our company left.