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This new year I’ve been listening to Ryan Holiday’s book Ego is the Enemy. Ryan is a student of stoicism and wrote another great book The Obstacle is the Way. In the ‘Ego is the Enemy’ Ryan speaks of purpose above passion, this really struck a chord with me and seems incredibly timely. Passion is important and can be a great motivator at the beginning of a journey, we need some heat to get us going at times. But if we leave it at passion, our ego tells us we have everything we need, we stop learning, we don’t ask for help and we don’t take advice, ‘my passion will take me where I need to go’ the ego says. Purpose, on the other hand, has weight, it is a guiding principle that can quiet the ego. We may look around and feel that everyone appears as though they’re ‘getting ahead’ and were not, or that if we’re only louder, more passionate we’d get ahead sooner. But how many of those people are still full of passion after 1 year or 10 years? If it’s just passion that has sought and won fame and accolade then it is also what burns us up, as the ego then needs another new thing to hold its attention and feel powerful and special. This ties into another word that comes back to me year after year and that is service. Yes I had a passion for yoga but I didn’t start to teach because of the passion, I started to teach when I wanted to have a life that was on purpose and full of service. In this new and unsettling time we’ve found ourselves in, I believe it is purpose and service that will ‘win the race’. Is it as loud as passion? No. But will it outlast it? Yes, I sincerely believe it will. I will be looking for new ways to serve, I hope you will join me. This Sunday is my workshop on the Yoga Sutras, Yoga for the Joyful Mind. I hope that we all leave with a new sense of purpose and tools to help us ride the waves we are all experiencing, it would be great to see you. |
