Passion Bubbles

This morning I am contemplating a few things out of recently read books. One out of the great book I finished a couple of weeks ago, Red Dress In Black and White by Elliot Ackerman where it was said, “Family should be at the center of who you are, not the circumference.” The others were by Mark Twain in Volume 3 of his autobiography. Twain spoke of “The things that take up the spare room in my heart.” He also said, “I refuse to take part in things where my heart is indifferent.” This made me think about all the, what I call my “passion bubbles,” I have. These would really be those things that take up the spare room in my heart. This, in turn, got me to thinking about our hearts capacity. Just how much room is in our hearts?
Twain had decided not to take part in things where his heart was indifferent. I consider this a pretty good rule of thumb. It’s usually easy to tell when I am indifferent; I’m not going to comment or not going to get heavily involved. This idea that Elliot Ackerman put in his book of family at the center and not at the circumference is a really good metaphor of how I want to arrange my passion bubbles. Our family should be at the core of what is given prime space in our hearts along with those other prime time passions we have. Then we can fill in the spare space. Interestingly, we also consider the heart being limitless in its ability to love, but we need to realize our limits on the number of passion bubbles we can support.
Each of us has a unique drive to make a contribution and fulfill a purpose. When we combine our passions with our strengths, we can achieve things never even imagined. But, it would probably do us well to consider Twain’s rule of not wasting too much of our heart’s spare room with those things we are indifferent to. This will also give us the room for keeping our family at the center. It’s about having an uncluttered heart.
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