What is Your Passion?

“It's better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.”
​~ Alan Watts

This week’s quote brings up an important point. Your quality of life is not determined by how long you are able to stay alive but by the richness of your experience. There is nothing wrong with wanting to live for a long time, but the length of your life should not determine your overall satisfaction with it.

Movies, for example, are not judged solely by their run time. If total time elapsed was the only thing that mattered, then all the best movies would be the longest ones. The same is true for music. You wouldn’t say that long songs are necessarily better than short songs. What matters is the quality of the tune, how the music makes you feel while it's playing.

We are taught to believe that more always equals better, that the goal of life should be to live for as many years as we can. But, living longer is not the same thing as living better. It's not really about the length of your life, it's about the depth of your experience.

So, don't worry that life is too short. Instead, figure out what you like to do, and then do it as much as you possibly can. Life is not about how much misery you can endure, but how much joy you can create. Whatever you choose to do in this world, do it passionately and with all your heart. In the end, a life lived in alignment with your passions is a life well-lived, regardless of how long it lasts.