I was asking for a partner who stretches & extends himself, and I wrote “has hobbies” as a description that represents the desire to immerse deeply in something that’s purely fun. Years ago, a friend recounted a conversation she had with her young son, explaining the meaning of avocation and extolling the importance of developing a part of you that may lie dormant, yet makes your heart sing.I’ve come to understand even more clearly now that if we will all follow that tug to something that lights us up, the possibilities are limitless. Why, just look the impact that J. Paul Getty’s passion for collecting art has had on the millions who’ve visited the Getty Museum or think if Anton Chekhov had only been a physician or Gertrude Blom had not spent 5 decades chronicling the Mayan cultures of Chiapas.Alan Watts is famous for having said, “When we finally got down to something, which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, you do that and forget the money, because...you’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.” Certainly, he was encouraging ones vocational pursuit, and maybe that’s why I like the idea of developing an avocation, as it just may become your central gift to the world.
