101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

particular feeling. It is the desire to keep experiencing that
one feeling and to do what it takes to facilitate that feeling no
matter what. When people imagine a passionate life, they
imagine doing things and being with people that make them
feel a specific way. Not only is that 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). When you go in with the “I will
do what it takes, even when it’s hard” attitude, you end up
building the foundations, skills, and abilities to cope so well
that after a period of time, the initial difficulty ironically
dissolves.
07. Gratitude is born of logic; a happy life is born of gratitude.
The reason people “practice gratitude” or make a
commitment to reflect on what they are grateful for is that,
unfortunately, few people naturally sense it in their lives, and
no matter what your current situation, anybody can find a
reason to.
Cultivating a sense of gratitude—which is not waiting for a
feeling of being happy with your life but choosing it by actively
focusing on what you’re fortunate, grateful, and proud to have
—is essential to ever feeling satisfied with your life, because
it puts you in a mindset to seek more to be grateful for. As
anybody can tell you: What you seek, you ultimately find.
08. Logic dismantles emotion. Passion tries to use emotion to
dismantle other emotions.
Logic can dismantle irrational, illogical, or painful emotions
and bring you to a higher state of awareness by evaluating
their roots/determining their causes, deciphering whether or

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not they are useful, or by actually listening to them and acting
accordingly if that’s what’s best.
Passion tries to use emotions to dismantle others. A high to
negate a low, a new feeling to replace an old one. It’s like
trying to grab at water with your hands thinking you’ll ever get
enough to drink.
It is a strong, clear, guided mind that undoes the irrational
stress of what Buddhists call the “monkey mind” (the
irrational, unprompted series of thoughts that cross
everyone’s mind each day, which, ultimately, affect if not
construct your emotional state). Logic can tell you how the
mind and heart correspond; passion thinks they’re one in the
same.
09. A lot of people who want to “pursue passion” and find
“passionate relationships” are seeking out of a place of lack.
Things that are soulful, genuine, and loving are rarely, if ever,
hysterical or highly emotional. They’re peaceful and desirable
and beautiful and sometimes powerful, but the manic desire
to do anything is usually an attempt to fill a hole, run from a
problem, avoid a truth.
The obsessive desire for a passionate relationship is usually
a reflection of a lack of love for oneself. The manic need to
pursue a passionate career is rooted in an intense
unhappiness with present reality. They are a series of
soothing thoughts and deflection methods and escape routes:
The monster everyone’s running from, of course, is
themselves.
10. Nobody ever got anything from wanting it badly enough.
I really don’t care how passionate you claim to be about
something, it doesn’t mean you’re right for the job. Or the
relationship. Or the promotion or apartment or whatever the
case may be.
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, both parties
need to be convinced the relationship is “the right one” for it

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to ever be, the promotion will go to the person who worked
the hardest and the apartment to the person with the best
credit score. Often people focus, and communicate, how
badly they want something to suffice for the actual reason(s)
they aren’t right/qualified/good enough to get it.
11. It’s doing, not thinking about doing, that creates a life well
lived.
If you want your life to be 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, eh?)
Confidence is built from what you do, a positive mindset is
rooted in what you do, loving relationships are sustained from
what you do, purposeful work is cultivated by doing it, not
thinking about why you should (and believing that’s the same
thing).
12. Passion is the easy way out.
Take $150K in loans to study something you “love” for 5+ years, but
not be able to move out/travel/get married/have kids/work a job you
actually like because you’re drowning in debt for the next 30. That’s
what passion does.
Marry the person 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 one for you. (How could you ever be so broken over anything
but true 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.

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Or rather, that’s what passion does when it’s not married to logic.
That’s what unbridled feelings will do when they aren’t stopped by
thought and understanding. That’s what happens when you believe
your emotions rather than questioning their origins. It’s what
happens when you try to avoid the inevitable suffering of the human
condition with a surge of emotion that you think will be the antidote.
Passion is the easy way, the cut corner, the half-assed route to the
life you want to live. As with all things passion is born of, it can only
sustain an idea, not a reality.

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THINGS YOU NEED