Passion Clarity?

"The most renewable energy we have 

is our potential and our own passion."

  -- Bertran Piccard (first solo balloon flight around the world)

Passion comes easily to some. "I just knew" rings sweet and clear.  Some kids hate school ... except for science where they excel.  You can almost see a path stretching out before them, heading for the halls of science, medicine or engineering.  

Some people tell stories about seeing their “first” -- quilt, mountain, airplane, concert, poetry reading, ballet, baseball game, homeless person or microscope -- saying, “I suddenly knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”  For the rest of us it’s more like C.W. McCall’s description of Wolf Creek Pass:  “it was hairpin county and switchback city. One of 'em looked like a can full'a worms; another one looked like malaria germs.”  

Translation:  for us, finding our passion is not a straight and logical path.  For those of us on this path, the advice to “follow our passion” or “follow our bliss,” is a hollow, magical wand that we don’t know how to use.  We see it’s magic in someone else’s hand but, in ours, it just lies there taunting us and we begin to ignore it, thinking the message is not for us.  It’s for them, those people who have been called, who actually have a passion, and, perhaps even, a purpose.

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The above is the opening to the chapter in Dragon Country that deals with finding our passion.  I would love to hear from you about the clarity of your passion.  Are you one of the "I've always known" or one of the rest of us who've had to discover our passion slowly over the years?  If you are a passion "discoverer," how have you gained clarity ... and do you now feel that you are completely clear?