Why Passion is Holding You Back and Logic is the Key to Your Dream Life
22 Feb 2023 · 22 min
Samantha Daly discusses Brianna Weiss's essay on why logic beats passion. Passion is a fleeting spark, but purpose is the sustained drive that creates lasting fulfillment. People often chase short-term highs that work against their goals, while logic helps you align decisions with your future self.
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Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast.
I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride.
Let's go make shit happen. What's up guys, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I don't really know where this episode is going to go today, but what we're going to do together is we're going to unpack an episode, or we're going to unpack an essay rather, by Brianna Weiss. So if you've ever read any of her books, a lot of them are really incredible. But the book that a lot of people have is this one that's called 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think. I got this book back in like 2019, I think. So I've just had it for several years and it's on my shelf in my living room. It's not— it's like a series of essays. So it's not like a story, it's not like a classic, like, personal development book where it makes sense from start to finish. It's just a collection of essays. So it's a good, like, to just kind of like flip through sometimes and see what catches your eye and maybe read something that inspires a thought for you or allows you to kind of like expand on something deeper or have some self-inquiry about something. So that's typically what I pick this book up for, is not to read it from like front to back in one sitting, but rather to just like pick it up when I need some inspiration or I want to have like some self-inquiry and just see what of the essays kind of catch my eye and just read through because each one is just like a couple of pages. So it's super quick. So I was out on my— I was out on my terrace the other day and I took the book out there and I was like, I'm just going to see what stands out to me and what I feel like I want to look at right now. And this one essay stood out to me because it's called Why Logical People Lead Better Lives. And when you hear that title, I'm wondering like what comes up for you if you're like, wait, that's not necessarily true. Or like, yes, logic is important, but being logical is sometimes a hindrance. Like just noticing what your internal dialogue already is when you hear the title of this essay, Why Logical People Lead Better Lives. In a generation where passion is at a premium, because I think if you are in this sort of like personal development space or you've had a spiritual awakening of some kind, we are on this passion-led path. And a lot of us, especially women, sometimes feel like living in a logical way has put us in a box or it's held us back somehow, or it's kept us trapped maybe in our current circumstances. Because the logical thing to do is to stay in the job even if you don't have the whole next plan mapped out, because it's safer that way, and you need to get another job before you leave your current one. Like, there's a million examples of ways where we could say, hey, like, logic actually didn't really help me. It kept me suffering for a lot longer. So I thought this would be an interesting essay for us to unpack together. Now, I highlighted some of, some of the things that I wanted to pull out and kind of unpack and discuss. But I still don't really know how I fully feel about everything in this essay, and I'm just going to like hash it out and talk it out with you because I think it'll be interesting. So when we get into the essay, I mean, there's, there's things that, yes, they make a lot of sense and I actually do agree with quite a bit of it. But there's some things that I'll also bring to the table that I'm not sure if I 100% agree with. And the reason I picked this one is because it's kind of like a full essay just shitting on passion. So if you're someone who's like trying to like find your passion or live your passion, it's just hilarious to be able to like hold the duality of like, wait, this— the whole thing that I thought I was like pursuing or that I thought was the goal in somebody else's mind could be like the thing that's stopping you or keeping you lazy or holding you back or whatever the story may be. Right. And so I love— I love consuming things that I don't 100% agree with because it also challenges me to think more and to actually question, hmm, I wonder like why I believe differently or why I believed differently. And could this potentially sway me in some way? Could this open my eyes to something new? So it's just very interesting. That's why this one of of the 101 essays in this book, on the day that I decided to flip through, it was the title that stood out to me because I felt like, okay, we've got controversy, there's, there's energy here, we can work with this. So I'm going to read to you throughout this episode, I'll read some of the quotes from this essay. And then I'll share my thoughts and kind of unpack it with you. But if you'd like to read the whole thing, it's in the book, 101 Essays That Will Change Your Life, which is linked in my Amazon storefront in my, like, favorite books tab. So you can go if you want to grab it off Amazon, um, you can shop it there. We'll leave the link to my Amazon store in the show notes, and by shopping it through my link, you also support me. So win-win. Okay, so the essay starts off by saying our generation believes that passion is the answer. And I think, like, if you're listening, if you're someone who's listening to this podcast, you may be like, yes, that's the answer that I've been searching for, is a more passionate relationship, a more passionate career path, like having my life be filled with more passion. So we're intrigued, right? We're interested. But then it goes on to say, it's not about following passion. It's about following purpose passionately. So now we've got to make this distinction between what is the difference between passion and purpose, right? And so I pulled this quote because I thought it was really good. And she— like a really good way to describe this difference between passion and purpose. And she says, Passion is the spark that lights the fire. Purpose is the kindling that keeps it burning all night. And I, I think this is a really beautiful illustration, right? Because at the end of the day, what passion is, is that it's a feeling, it's a high, it's like an ecstasy that we experience. But because it's such a high, it's momentary, and it fades, and it goes away rather quickly. You've— we've all experienced this at some point or another in our lives with like chemistry with another person or like a relationship. Like at the start, passion is like really high. It's like this surge of like so many emotions and you're like riding on top of that wave. But that doesn't stay like constant through every day, all the months, all the years for the rest of your life, right? Passion wanes. And so when you just— when she describes purpose as like the kindling that keeps it burning all night long, that's the thing that ultimately is going to carry you through and help you cross the finish line is having a deeper purpose. And this reminds me of— I was, I was teaching, I was teaching a class inside of kind of like a mastermind group a week or so ago. And one of the women on the call, when we finished the class, they were asking me questions and, and she was saying how she started a coaching business and she was gaining a lot of traction, but then she kind of strayed away from it and she started this other business and now she's doing like dog walking and other things and she kind of shifted her focus, but she really wants to get back into the life coaching space and like reignite that fire to get back into her business and was asking essentially for like guidance around that or how to stay consistent essentially. And the thing that I ultimately guided her back to was like, well, why did you start the life coaching business in the first place? Because if you don't have a strong enough why, a.k.a. a purpose for why you're doing something, you're not going to want to ride the wave of that thing when it gets really choppy and really ugly and really hard, right? The only reason that I've never given up on my business or never, like, even backed down or, or backed away from it at all is because I'm so obsessed with the mission, the deeper mission, the why of why I'm doing this. Like when I need to refuel the purpose of why I'm doing the work that I'm doing, I look at testimonials from my clients and I look at all those messages from women that have told me that they've— their whole lives have been completely changed or shifted because of the work that we did together at some point, whether it was changing their career path or being able to get a raise or manifesting more abundance in their life, cultivating the freedom to work remotely and travel or move cross-country. Country to a new city or have the courage to leave a mediocre relationship and choose themselves and finding true self-love, being able to look in the mirror and say that they really love themselves and not be fixated on the flaws anymore. Like, that's the mission. The deeper mission is that we're changing people's lives, right? And so for this, this woman that was asking me this question, it's like, I'm like, well, why did you start it in the first place? And she's like, well, you know, like, I see people like you. And, you know, she listed off some other bigger coaches in the space and she's like, I just, you know, you're so inspiring and I love the lifestyle that you get to live and it seems like really awesome. And I'm like, okay, yes, 100%. Like, let's just all recognize sometimes we want to do things because they look fun and it looks enjoyable, but that's only what you see from the outside. If you don't have a deeper mission in your heart, then the passion and the excitement of, oh my God, I'm going to start this thing and I'm going to post on Instagram and I'm going to create a logo and build a personal brand, that's going to fade. And you're going to get to the point where it's actually fucking hard because you're like, oh, it's actually hard work to do this and to maintain this and to produce at this level and to have high-quality content and to actually make sales and to get clients and to build this in a sustainable way. And oh my gosh, there's like problems and people want refunds and it's challenging to continue to produce at this level or grow past this ceiling that I've created for myself. Like, you're going to get to all the hard shit. And if you don't have a deeper why, if you don't have the actual purpose behind it, then you're going to stop when all the hard stuff comes up. You're not going to have anything to carry you through because the passion won't be there anymore. That like high, that ecstasy of like, oh my gosh, this is so much fun. That's now gone. So what is going to carry you through? You need that like deeper why, you need that purpose to actually bring you through it. So that's— I love this illustration, right, of like the passion is the spark that lights the fire, but the purpose is the kindling that keeps it burning all night long. So now we kind of have this illustration to paint the picture of like where this essay is kind of going, right, of why we're leaning towards logic more than passion or why Why quote unquote, why logical people lead better lives apparently. Right? So, so let's dig a little bit deeper. Okay.
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She says, passion tells you that you should go after what you most want in life, but it's never about what you want. It's about what you want most. So the distinction here is like we say, yeah, what do you, what do you love most, or what are you most passionate about, or like following your deepest desires, right? But what actually ends up happening is that We're ultimately all the time just letting one of our desires win over another one because we have many desires that are all happening at the same time, which are often conflicting with one another. And if you go back to the episode that I did about Tony Robbins, we talk about the towards and away values. And this is another really great illustration of how we can think that we want something. Well, actually, we truly do want it. We desire it, right? We have a toward value of success. We We want the success, but then we may have an away value of failure, meaning we're very motivated to stay away or guard ourselves from failure. And so just because we are ambitious and we want the success, we could still block ourselves or ultimately choose to do something that doesn't align with the success value because the away value of avoiding failure is stronger for us. So that's a good one. If you haven't listened to that episode, go back and it like lines up so beautifully with what is being illustrated in this part of the conversation about passion and how we ultimately just let one of our conflicting desires win every single time. And so she goes on to say, the only reason people don't do what they claim to want most is because there is something else they want a little bit more. So again, if we go back to that, like, towards and away conversation, it's like, yes, you want the success, but perhaps you want to avoid failure more than you want to seek success, right? So if you can figure out like what your towards and away values are, that's going to be massive. That's something that I guide the women through also on our retreats, which the retreat will be coming back this year. If you guys are interested in coming, we have a waitlist going, so make sure that you add your name to it. There's over 100 people, I believe, on it at this point, and there's only a handful of spots available. Full. So it will definitely sell out. It was an amazing experience. We're going to be in the Dominican Republic again at the same amazing, gorgeous, like jaw-dropping view villa. And it's going to be in mid-December of 2023. So if you're interested, add your name to the waitlist, you'll be first to get all details and pricing and first in line to be able to book rooms and all those kinds of things. Anyway, Let's continue on with this essay, right? So it says they ultimately don't get what they want done because they're trying to follow their most intense desire rather than prioritizing them, right? So the example here is, I'd like to have another day off, but I'd also like to work on my retirement fund and build my business some more. Right now I'm choosing the latter so that it can facilitate the former later on down the road. Right? If you look at that, it's like choosing which desire you let win. So you're letting the desire to build the retirement fund and grow your business win over the desire to have a day off. And it's not that the desire to have a day off or the desire to relax more or to be more present or whatever it is for you isn't a real desire. It's just that when it really comes down to it, the other desire is stronger, the other desire is bigger. And so we choose which one is going to win. Right. So it says they choose the one that elicits the most extreme high, which is fallible because it's impermanent. So we choose the desire that gives us the most immediate amount of like passion or like the biggest surge of emotion, because that's ultimately what we're seeking in everything. The only reason we want anything in life— I've said this a million times, only almost want to like die repeating it— but the only reason we want anything in life is because we think that it's going to give us a certain feeling. So if you can figure out what that feeling is, and you can find ways to give yourself that feeling, you'll be able to manifest the things that you want faster, right? But so that's to this exact point, we are choosing the desire that elicits the most extreme emotion that we're desiring to get out of it. So overall, I think the message here is that the problem with passion is that it's this like high, it's this ecstasy, it's this thing that we chase, but then ultimately it fades because it was never designed to be a sustainable feeling. Passion is what it is, and it serves its purpose being like a short-term thing. But we can't have like sustained months or years of like pure bliss and ecstasy because just like anything in life, nothing would actually feel good if we didn't know what it felt like to feel bad, right? So if it was sunny every single day, you wouldn't appreciate the sun the way that you do when you live in a place where it's rainy in the spring and it's cold as fuck in the winter, right? Like the contrast of everything is what gives anything the relevance or importance or allows us to see the beauty in it or makes us feel grateful in some way. And so the same thing applies to passion, right? The only reason we're able to know and feel how amazing a passionate moment is, is because it's exactly that. It's a moment. If our entire life was passion-filled, truly, right? Because people say that we're like, oh, live a passion-filled life, or like, live your passion, or like, I wake up every day and live my passion. Okay, yes, but also no, right? Like, that's like, that's where those are words. That's, that's a saying. It's not actually the feeling, right? Even people that you see online or celebrities and you're like, wow, their life looks looks fucking amazing, like, all the time. You also have to trust that they don't feel the ecstasy of, like, passion and, like, fame and all of that all the time. Like, they also go through the waves and the cycles of regular human emotions because that's how it's designed. Passion is only so special and so incredible of a feeling that we crave because it's elusive, because it wanes, because it fades, because it's so short-lived. And it's designed to be that way. So we can't go out into the world expecting to be able to create a life that's going to make us feel that way 100% of the time, all the time. It's just unrealistic, right? So this part is like interesting. She's talking about how logic— this is what she says. She says logic helps you make decisions for the person you hope to be. Okay, I can get behind that, right? We're thinking logically, we're thinking about the future. We're like, okay, who do I want to be in the future? What do I logistically need to do to get there? Logic helps you make decisions for the person you hope to be. Passion helps you make decisions for the person you are or were. Now, big pause as we digest that.
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Love you guys and thanks for supporting Makeshift Happen. I can see, I can see that. But then this is what throws me off. Okay, this is what, this is what I'm not vibing. It, it says the one true sign that you're moving ahead with your life is that you don't know where you're going. If you knew what you were doing, you would be circling the same path again. The one true sign that you're living in the past is if you feel that reckless high. You're proving something to someone or yourself. Mm. How are we feeling, girlies? I'm gonna read it one more time so we can all just process this. The one true sign that you're moving ahead with your life is that you don't know where you're going, because if you knew what you were doing, you would just be circling the same path again. We'll pause there and dissect. We can appreciate the sentiment, right? Like, yes, if everything is predictable, if you're living in certainty, it means that you're not growing. I think that's the point of what's being said here. If you're living in certainty and your life is predictable at this point and you know exactly what's going to happen next, it's because you're round in the loop on a pattern. And you're just doing the same thing. And sometimes we live in seasons of our life where that's fine, right? Not demonizing that either, because we can't just be like immensely breaking through comfort zones every second of every day, all the time. Like sometimes we actually have to like be in a routine for a while to learn the lessons from it and then go into the growth phase. But I feel like the one true sign that you're moving ahead with your life is that you don't know where you're going. Can also be a little misleading. Now, we're going to leave space for nuance, because one thing that I hate is when you can tell the context of what someone is trying to say something in, and then you purposefully take it out of that context to, like, rip on it. People do this all the time on the internet. It's like, you know what I meant, but then you decided to insert something else into it and be like, well, what about when people And it's like, well, I wasn't talking about that and you know it, so why are you being a weasel? So we're going to try not to do that because I get it right. I've said I totally understand what the statement is saying. And I think that's what is meant here is like if everything is predictable, if you're living in certainty, it means that you're not getting out of your comfort zone. You're not, you're not pursuing growth, right? So that means you're not moving ahead. But if you read this, the one true sign that you're moving ahead with your life is that you don't know where you're going. The reason I have a little bit of beef with that is because you could read that and be like, oh yeah, I literally have no idea where I'm going. And Brianna Weiss says that that means I'm moving ahead with my life. And sometimes in order to move ahead with your life, you really do need clarity because there's a lot of us that be out here like I don't know what the fuck is going on. I don't know who I am. I don't know what my purpose is. I don't know what I'm trying to do, be, have. Like, I hate my job, but I don't know what I want to do. And, and that's to me not a sign of like, yes, you're moving ahead with your life. It might be a sign that you're approaching a growth phase. You're like going through an awakening of some kind and you have the opportunity now to choose growth and to disrupt your patterns and create new pathways. And change your thinking and change your surroundings and change your environment and actually do something different and then create the growth from there. But not knowing where you're going to me doesn't always signal like, yes, you are moving. That's the one true sign that you're moving ahead with your life, that you don't know the fuck you're going next. Like, I'm not buying it. I'm not fully— I'm not fully backing it. No, ma'am. Yeah. And the same thing with like the one true sign. The next part of that statement was the one true sign that you're living in the past is that you feel that reckless high of passion. That's what we're speaking about or what she's speaking about when she talks about that reckless high is feeling the reckless high of, of passion means that you're proving something to someone or yourself, which again, it's like, yes, okay, it could be true in some scenarios, but I don't think it's like the one true sign. You know what I mean? Like, I think we're leaving space for a little bit of a disagreement there, Miss Brianna. Okay. The next, the next one that I wanted to cover is this idea of passion being an attachment to an idea. And I feel like I kind of spoke about this earlier, but it's basically just hitting home the, the idea that when we chase passion, it's because we're chasing a feeling, right? It's like an addiction to the feeling of something being passionate. And so we're becoming attached to a certain idea or that, that feeling or that high. And it's the desire to keep experiencing that one feeling over and over again and do whatever it takes to keep feeling that feeling no matter what. Right? So when people imagine a passionate life, they imagine doing things and being with people that make them feel a very specific way. And you can think about this like in your own visualizations or when you do your vision board or when you think about who you want to be in the future. It's like, yes, we're imagining that our life will look and feel a certain way and we want to do things in order to create that feeling. And there's nothing wrong with that. But the point that she's making here is she says not only is it unrealistic, it's ultimately impossible. Logic tells you that even at a job you adore, there will be hard days. Being in a relationship with the love of your life doesn't necessarily make it easy, though that's what people assume and yearn for. And so it's just creating this distinction again between like when we visualize a passionate life, we almost imagine that like every day with our partner is going to be so lovey-dovey and amazing. And it's almost like what I talked about in the in the Balance episode of like when we visualize our like next level self who's like really healthy and like in her like wellness era, it's almost like you're literally imagining yourself as a different human that you wake up and you have this whole different like feeling and everything is suddenly aesthetic and you're like motivated to jump into your workout and you like love drinking lemon water and you're doing all the things and you have no problem with it and it's not hard and it's just this lifestyle that you've built and That's the lie that passion tells us, is that you're going to get there and it's going to feel like that all the time. When the reality is, even if you did become that like wellness girly or you got into the relationship with like your dream partner, you would wake up in both of those scenarios and still have hard days and still be like, I don't really feel like doing this, or have arguments or challenges or be like, oh, I don't want to go to the gym or like, fuck this lemon water, you know what I mean? Like, the idea that the whole existence is going to be passion-filled is unrealistic and ultimately impossible. So I definitely do agree with that. Logic is what allows us to understand, yes, I'm trying to build a business and hopefully it's going to facilitate this lifestyle for me where I get to have more time, location, and financial freedom. But also, like, I'm sure it's hard to be a business owner, right? Because, like, it is, right? I'm sure there's going to be a lot of challenges and setbacks. And there's also a whole list of cons that comes with the list of pros. And just being able to recognize when we are in that, like, passion-focused tunnel vision space where all we can see is, oh my God, it's going to feel amazing forever if I achieve this thing. And being able to, like, recognize, oh, that's not really realistic. And it's It's probably not going to be like that because we've all wanted something really badly in our lives and actually achieved it or gotten there and then realized that the passion or the ecstasy, the happiness of that moment is like a surge. But then it also fades, right? Like, how long are you on a high after an achievement or reaching a goal of some kind before you just feel like your fucking regular self again? You know, and the same thing, like with clothes. You buy a new piece of clothing and it's like the best feeling. You're like, oh my God, I want to wear this all the time. It looks so cute. I love it. How many times do you wear the new piece of clothing or how many days pass before it just is like another regular piece of clothing in your closet? You know, or like when you, when you like redo a room in your house or something or you freshly paint and then, or you like just get your nails done. Oh, it's such a good example. You just get your nails done, right? And you're like, okay, fresh nails, fresh set, and you're like super obsessed with them because they're brand new and you're super careful with them. And then how many days go by until you're like not being as careful with them anymore and you're just like shoving your hand in the bottom of the chip bag or you're like deep cleaning something in the kitchen and scraping something off the countertop with the edge of your beautiful acrylic nail set that you paid $70 for, right? It's like the feeling, the high always wears off. And so if we're creating our vision for who we're going to be in the future, thinking that that's what it's going to feel like all the time, we're always going to be disappointed because no matter what goals you hit, when you get there, you're still going to be you and you're still going to feel like a regular-ass person most of the frickin' time. That's, I think, the most overarching message about this difference between, like, passion and logic and probably why she says logical people live better lives is because if you have the intellectual understanding and the logic to know that ahead of time, you won't be constantly trying to feed that passion monster within you, right? Like people who become celebrities really young, they have a lot of those like ecstasy moments of, of passion or excitement or success or whatever it is. And then they try to keep like stacking those to sustain that feeling. Like buying a Lamborghini. Okay, now I feel normal again. So what am I going to do? I'm going to go buy a Birkin bag and I feel normal again. So what am I going to do? I'm going to go buy a G-Wagon. And what am I going to do once that feels normal? Then I'm going to go buy a new home and a vacation condo and a yacht and a private jet. And it's like you try to fill or feed that passion monster over and over again with all these things, but you, you're still you and you're always going to still end up at the baseline of you. And so I think the most important message that we could take from this is how do we make the baseline of who we are and how we feel on a regular basis already be pretty great? Because if we're using logic, we know that that's where we're going to be most of the time. So if you don't like you or your baseline of how you wake up on a daily basis or how you feel on a daily basis is pretty like meh, it's not that you like need these huge like mega goals or like changes in your life because even those things, once you achieve them, you're still going to drop back down to that baseline of who you essentially are. It's like that quote that's like, wherever you go, there you are, right? And so wherever you go, whatever you end up achieving, you're still going to be with yourself. You're still going to be yourself inside of your body, and you're still going to come back to that baseline. So that's the thing that actually needs to shift is your baseline happiness and enjoyment and fulfillment, not seeking these things that you think are going to bring you so much passion, whether it's through like, like crazy job changes or like leaving your relationship because you're like, oh, that doesn't feel passionate anymore. I need to find someone like better. Or even just like online shopping or like doing all these little things where we're trying to like feed the passion monster. So this part is good. It's like it's not doing or— okay, it's doing, not thinking about doing that creates a life well-lived. So to the point of not just feeding the passion monster or thinking about what's the next thing or visualizing the next thing that's going to bring you more passion in your life, it's understanding, bringing in the logic of like, hey, I actually have to do something about this in order for this to be hap— in order for this to happen. And so in this part, she says, if you want your life to become different, do differently. A lot of our concept of what makes for a happy existence is rooted in the abstract. Think clearly, have a positive frame of reference, be surrounded by people you care about, have a sense of purpose in your work. But these things don't work unless they are genuine, and too many people try to fake it as though they can even convince themselves it's real. The alternative is doing the work. It's the nitty-gritty, ass-on-the-ground, nose-to-the-grindstone hard work that people avoid because they don't want to be responsible for their own failures. Can't fail if you haven't tried. So this, this, this part is huge and we could go so many directions with this. But I think the overall message is like, yes, again, coming back to the beginning, passion is that spark, right? It's the thing that like lights the fire. But it's not going to sustain you on the journey. And so passion is just the spark. But if you actually want to make change in your life, you have to be willing to do something. You have to actually do the hard work. And so the same example of like understanding you could have an amazing job that you love, but logically you also need to understand that there's going to be bad days, hard days, shit things about it. Also, you could, you could build a totally successful business and work for yourself and be your own boss and have all the time, location, financial freedom, all the things that are like glamorized about this type of work, of working for yourself, working online, and also understand that it's hard. It's very hard work. Like, you're going to put in long hours. Like, there's going to be a lot of self-doubt. There's going to be a roller coaster of emotions, like so many ups and downs. Like, you're going to have to be willing to go through the hard stuff and actually show the fuck up and do the work if you want to actually get to that outcome. So passion is just the thing that really sparks the flame that gives you that, that initial motivation or excitement to go do something. But then you actually have to do it. You actually have to put in the work. And in order for you to want to continue doing that, even when it gets hard, you have to have a deeper why. You have to have purpose, right? There's a really good example in here when it comes to relationships and the idea of passion as it relates to love. And so she says, when you believe that passion is love, no more, no less, you'll want to end a relationship as soon as you're not getting that hormonal high from your partner anymore. The way this usually manifests is in people being very indecisive and uncertain about whether or not they love someone, whether or not they should stay or let go or try harder or wait it out or accept that love isn't always a fever dream. And so again, it's like becoming addicted to that, like, high, that, like, ecstasy of the passion in a relationship and understanding that that ultimately doesn't lead you to a good life. Because again, the purpose of this whole episode— of this whole essay, rather— is how to lead a better life. And so I think the point that she's trying to drive home here when it comes to relationships is like, if you lead with passion for the success of your relationships, your relationships aren't going to be ultimately that successful or fulfilling because you're just going to be chasing chasing that high all the time. And this shows up so much also in like toxic relationship patterns, because a lot of times in toxic relationships there are the extreme highs and lows. Like someone can make you feel so good and then they drop you down so quickly to this awful, gut-wrenching feeling because they've done something or they've cheated or they've gaslit you or they've said something and now you feel awful. But then they come back around and they can apologize and they can love bomb you or give you all of this, affirmations and buy you flowers and say, I'm so sorry, and you're my person and you're the love of my life and I want to build a future with you and it'll never happen again and I love you so much. And it's like the abuse cycle is relying on the person to, to be addicted to the high of the feeling of passion and ecstasy that can only come back so often because you've let it drop so low, right? Like in a healthy relationship, there'll be like little peaks and valleys, but not these extreme, like, mountains and deep, deep valleys of like, we're so on top of the world together. And then we're like, literally, I feel like I want to die because I'm in so much pain in this relationship. But that's how they kind of like string you along and get you to be addicted to the relationship because you're addicted to the high of the passion that comes back after the crash. Right? So there's an interesting piece in here about passion being the easy way out. And the— this is what she says as it relates to relationship and passion being the easy way out. It says, marry the person that you're consumed by, whose neglect and abuse fuels you in its recreation of your childhood issues. Be so torn apart when they leave you that you convince yourself that they are the only, the only one for you. Okay, wait, I'm going to read that again. Cut. Start over. Learning how to read. Marry the person you're consumed by, whose neglect and abuse fuels you and its recreation of your childhood issues. Be so torn apart when they leave you that you convince yourself that they are the only one for you. How could you ever be so broken over anything but true love? Love. Base your relationship on how far from reality you stretch when you're together. Lose friends and work and a sense of self. That's what passion does. Or rather, that's what passion does when it's not married to logic. That's what happens when you believe your emotions rather than questioning their origins. Passion is the easy way, the cut corner, the half-assed route to the life you want to As with all things passion is born of, it can only sustain an idea, not a reality. Ooh, ooh. Okay. So first speaking to again, like when you become addicted to those like passion cycles in a relationship, basically that's— she's saying that's what you can kind of end up in is that, is that those relationships where you're completely consumed by the person because they take you so far out of reality and they, they make you feel so high and then they drop you so low and you're like, how could I be this devastated if it weren't true love? It must be true love. And that's what happens when there's no logic married to the passion. And so it's not like passion is bad or we don't want to have passion in our lives, but it's like we need the logic to come in to also be able to question some of our thought processes and things that are happening in our lives and the origins of our emotions. Like she says, that's what happens when you believe your emotions. Rather than questioning their origins. So for a lot of us that have done kind of like mindset work, you know that you can always ask yourself when something's coming up, like, is that actually true? That's logic. You're bringing in logic to the emotional or triggered response that you're having and you're going, oh, well, is that actually true about me? What that person just said or what I just said about myself, is that actually true? How can I know it to be true? If, if I were to choose a better thought, what would it be? Is this ultimately going to serve me? Is it going to help me create the reality that I want? Okay, the answer is no. So what might— what's a better thought that I can replace it with? Right. Being able to bring in the logic and do some of that like mindset work and dissection of our emotions and our triggers and our responses is what ultimately allows us to create a better life in the long run. There's another interesting piece in here that talks about seeking from a place of lack and how a lot of people who want to pursue passion, whether that's in your career, relationship, whatever it is, if you're like, I want a more passionate life, what's actually happening there is that you're seeking out of a place of lack. And she says the obsessive desire for a passionate relationship is usually a reflection of a lack of love for oneself. Whoa. The obsessive desire for a passionate relationship is usually the reflection of a lack of love for oneself. Raise your hand if you are this person, or if you know a person who they're so obsessed with finding someone, probably because they're not super happy or secure with just being with themselves, or like being in love with who they are. It's like they need that counterpart to fill the void. The manic need to pursue a passionate career is rooted in an intense unhappiness with present reality. I know I'm calling a lot of you out right here. I'm going to say this one more time. The manic need to pursue a passionate career is rooted in an intense unhappiness with present reality. So the reason why so many of us are seeking or have been sold or bought into this idea of like live your passion, search for a passionate life or creative life that you're passionate about is because we are coming from a place of lack. And it's okay to recognize that, like, we all come from a place of lack every now and again for so many different things. Like, we have to be able to call ourselves out and realize, oh my God, I did that literally because I was scared, or I'm doing that because I'm trying to fill a void. Like, we have to have the radical self-awareness to be able to do this work all the time, right? It's not like you get out of a lack mindset once in your life and then you're like, good to go. And if you're one of those people who thinks that that's what you did, then you're not really doing the work. You're just pretending to do the work. So we all can find ourselves in lack at any given moment, at any, any time in our lives or any day of the week, right? It's about having the radical awareness to recognize it and then have the, have the curiosity to want to go deeper and understand. That's so interesting. I do feel like The reason why I'm so manic about wanting to quit my job or create a different career path or build a business or do whatever is because there is an intense unhappiness in my present reality. And then being willing to look at, have I, have I looked at all of the areas that might be contributing to the intense unhappiness? Or am I just assuming that when I have a more passionate relationship or when I have a more passionate job, that all of that will go away and everything will feel happy and fulfilling, right? That's like the lie of the live a passionate life. That's the lie of the passion monster is like, just feed me more and then you'll feel like this forever. And we know that's not true. So maybe what that's indicating to you is some of that baseline work we talked about of like, how do you build your baseline of of who you are and how you feel when you wake up on a regular-ass basis, even if you don't have the dream job yet, right? Maybe you do need to quit your job. Maybe it's toxic as fuck, but like, maybe there's an inter— like an interim thing that you can do before you actually get to the place of having built a successful business or being a coach online or creating time and location and financial freedom for yourself. Like, that takes time and hard fucking work. You can't just wait to go from where you are all the way to there. But like, what if there is work that we could do in the middle to make adjustments and changes to help make the baseline of how we feel on a regular basis better? Okay, so the last piece that I want to touch on here is that nobody ever got anything from wanting it badly enough. And there's a big conversation in the personal development space, especially in business, around wanting it badly enough. And again, like, I think you do need to want it badly enough, because there are some people that just genuinely, sincerely, the reason that they've failed or not taken off or whatever is because they don't fucking want it bad enough. Again, going back to the very beginning where we talked about like, we're just choosing which desire is stronger. They had a stronger desire than the one to succeed or build the coaching business or do whatever. So they didn't want it badly enough. They chose they actively chose a stronger desire. So that's real. So that's one, one place where I will kind of like caveat this point and be like, okay, but also you do need to want it badly enough. But I also think this is relevant and important. It says, I really don't care how passionate you claim to be about something. It doesn't mean that you're right for the job. But people tend to claim being passionate as a qualifying factor when at the end of the day, the person who gets the job is the one who is most technically capable. Now, people get jobs for all kinds of reasons. That last part of like the person who gets the job is the one who's most technically capable, not always true. It could be the person who has the most money or has the most connections or whatever, right? We know that to be true. But I think the point, the true point of what's trying to be said here is like ultimately the person who's going to get there or get it done or secure the position that they want in their life is the person who's capable, meaning you were willing to do the hard work, right? So as we spoke about, passion is going to initiate for you, but then you have to carry it out. You have to, you have to do the hard work to actually get there. And so if you're just relying on being passionate all the time, you're not actually going to be able to create the end result that you were desiring. So this is, this is, I see this so much in the coaching space as well. It's like a lot of people are passionate about something but they are not necessarily like qualified or they don't have the skills. They haven't built the, the tools or the understandings to be able to actually succeed. And it's like, why is it not working? Why is it not working? Why is it not working? And sometimes it's like, yes, you're very passionate, but you're not highly skilled at what you're trying to do. And so there's a lot of people And this goes for any job, right? It's like there's a lot of people. If you look at like comedy or musicians or Hollywood or like literally anything, there's so many people, there's a huge pool of people that you could— that could potentially rise to like the top positions in those arenas. And the ones that do, that actually do, is not because they were just passionate. It's because they did the hard fucking work and they worked on themselves to build the skill set to be qualified to actually get there, to actually be— to stand out, to be special enough to have an edge. And sometimes the edge isn't like, oh, they're the best singer on the planet, but it's like they're excellent at marketing themselves, or they're amazing at like building community and like rallying people around them and creating this sort of like obsessive, like, fan moment movement type thing, and that helps them rise to fame. But it's like, yeah, there's an element in there of like, you have to be qualified for the thing that you're trying to do. You have to have the capability, as Brianna says in this essay, right? It's not like— you can't just say that you're passionate and that makes it happen for you. Passion is the initiator. If we've learned anything in this episode, passion is the spark that lights the flame. That is it. That's it. After that, you need so much more. You need purpose. You need a deeper why. You need a skill set. You need capability. You need endurance. You need to be willing to do hard fucking work. Like, there's so much more that goes into actually becoming the person you want to be and building the kind of life you want to have than just passion. And I think that's ultimately the point of the essay, which is why It is titled Why Logical People Lead Better Lives. So we can agree or disagree or have our own thoughts. I don't think it's really— I don't think it was ever really about like what's better, passion or logic. It's just actually understanding that the best thing is having both, right? Like, as she talks about like marrying the two, there's actually a sentence in here where she says the head and the heart must be separate entities that you figure out how to merge together. So if you think about like the head and the heart being like the logic and the passion, it's like you need both of them, but they need to be separate. And then we have to figure out how to make them work together harmoniously. That's what creates like ultimately the best results and you being able to live the kind of life that you've been dreaming of. It's not just like sitting and visualizing and chasing that high of like the passion, like going back to the woman that I was speaking to who asked me that question on the mastermind call. It's like she kind of was this serial entrepreneur of like tried coaching and then went into something else and then went into dog walking and then now wants to go back to coaching. And I think what was really happening for her was she was trying to feed the passion monster, right? Of like, I want to feel this like ecstasy or this high all of the time. And when something stops feeling like that for me, I drop off from it, but I get another creative idea and the passion monster convinces me that that creative idea is going to give me that sustained feeling of enjoyment, fulfillment, happiness, whatever. And so I go in that direction. And I see this so much, especially for people who are building online businesses. It's like they're just following the flame of passion. And as soon as that spark fades out, they're like, okay, what's the next thing? Like, this doesn't feel aligned for me anymore, or this doesn't feel— doesn't feel alive for me anymore. And it's like we use all of this spiritual jargon to almost bypass the fact that you actually have to do hard fucking work. And it doesn't always feel amazing. It doesn't always feel passionate. Like, there are hard days, there is hard stuff in whatever it is you're creating. This could be with your career, with studying something that you want to move into, with building a healthy relationship. Every day does not feel like a honeymoon in a healthy relationship, I can promise you that. Like, of course not, right? And so it's about leaning into the spark of passion but knowing what it's going to take from that point forward to actually carry you to the finish line. All right. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, please take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram stories. You can tag me at Samantha Daily and at Makeshift Happen Podcast. If you haven't yet, please go leave us a 5-star rating and review. You can click the little star button on Spotify. It literally takes 2 seconds. And if you're listening on Apple, you can again click the 5 stars and maybe write a couple sentences, leave us a little review. I read all of them. I so, so appreciate you guys. We are fast approaching our way to a million downloads. Every single listen and share and review helps us get there. I'm so, so grateful for this community. You guys are absolutely incredible. It's been such a beautiful journey to be with you over the last, like, 2 and a half years of this show. And I'm just so proud of everything that we've created and all the lives that we're changing. So please keep sharing, keep reviewing, all the things. I love you so much. Your support means the world to me, and I will catch you you guys next week. Bye!
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