Why do personal passions matter during difficult times?
During a difficult period in your family, most conversations may become exchanges of news, arrangements and things that still need doing. People ask how you are, and you tell them what has happened. It can become hard to give an answer about yourself that is not also an account of the trouble.
A personal passion gives that answer somewhere else to begin. There is still something you love, have a relationship with and want to spend time doing. Its place in your life matters even when it cannot improve the circumstances causing pain.
Suppose you have always loved novels. You enjoy wondering why a character says less than they mean, or finding that a scene changes your understanding of an earlier one. In the middle of family uncertainty, you pick up the book you have been reading. For a while, those interests are active again. You are someone following a story, with questions and pleasures of your own.
The next chapter does not have to contain advice about your situation. Its value may lie in having nothing to do with it. Not every part of you needs to be occupied with the same problem at every moment.
A Spark from Questions Asked
Your passions add invaluable quality to your life. They can be referred to as the solace you find during bad times and the anchor of your soul that keeps you grounded and helps you stay true to yourself when you are surrounded by life's storms, or even when life is a calm sea.
In My passion and happiness, Innocent describes passion as solace in bad times and an anchor that helps him remain true to himself. He also gives it a place in calm times. What is loved is part of a worthwhile life, not an emergency measure to be put away once the crisis ends.
That distinction changes what you expect from the time. You need not close the novel feeling refreshed, wiser or ready to handle the next difficult call. Perhaps you are still sad. You have nevertheless spent part of the evening with something that interests you. That interest can be real alongside the sadness.
Some evenings even that will be difficult. You may read the same paragraph several times and put the book down. A passion does not stop being yours because you cannot enjoy it on demand. Nor must its old place in your routine remain unchanged when life asks more of you.
Making room is different from disappearing
There are also times when reading would take you away from something that needs an answer now. If someone is waiting for information only you can give, another chapter will not remove that need. You can recognise the obligation without deciding that all time spent reading is selfish.
The question is what is being postponed, and why. A pause from a difficulty you cannot resolve tonight is different from repeatedly avoiding a conversation you could have. The book may be the same in both cases; its role in the day is different.
It is worth protecting the pleasure from that burden too. If reading is allowed only when it helps you cope better, it becomes another thing required to perform well in a hard period. You can love it more freely than that. It belongs to the life you are trying to sustain, including the days when there is no urgent reason to justify opening a book.
Related lessons
AI-generated from Innocent Mwatsikesimbe's writing.
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