Chasing the Rainbow (Part 1)

Passion. Integrity. Perspective. Humility.

The four core elements of who I am. Most of us spend our entire life chasing the proverbial rainbow. Running after romance, dedicating countless hours to earning a degree, peddling uphill after the position of our dreams, sustaining a system for happiness. There are moments when each goal is within our grasp and moments when each is just beyond our fingertips. What helps one to hold on or to climb that final stair depends on what lies in the foundation of each one of us. I am chasing my own rainbow. Right now the pot-of-gold is just beyond my fingertips, and I am digging deep to reach it.

MY life’s journey has led me to this point. I can feel it. I know it. Everything I have done and everything that I am has prepared me for exactly where I am today. The only thing I am surer of is my unwavering love for my daughter, so the fact that the pot-of-gold is so close yet so far has me thinking and reflecting while I am forced to wait.

My friend Diane advised me, "Identify the four things that are your core. The elements you bring with you every day, to every situation you face." It was good advice. I will use this advice to help me process while climbing. Here’s the first of a four part series I’ll call “Chasing the Rainbow”:

PASSION.

How do you define passion? Maybe you define it like the Man on the Street . Maybe sex, like several of the people caught off-guard in this video, comes to mind first when you hear PASSION. Or maybe God is what you think about—The Passion of Christ. Maybe it’s a sport. Living in Brazil, I sure have observed lots of passion for soccer.

Passion is what drives me. I'm not a perfectionist by any definition, but I want to be perfect in what I do. In approach. In effort. In energy I exert. I am passionate. If I cannot give 110% to a task, the task is not mine to perform. It's a great trait for the type A personality, which I am not by any means, because it fosters the need to line up the ducks.

However, Passion, for me, is about caring. About resisting apathy. About understanding that all we do has a result, which creates another situation, which in turn creates a result, and in turn…you get it. It’s what makes this world continue spinning.

Passion implores me to ask, “Why?” It implores me to assess how everything fits together to form the big picture. It pushes me to greatness and perfection. It prevents me from settling on OK and pushes me to Great! Passion pushes. It inspires. It begs to be imitated.

Look what Roger Bannister's passion encouraged him to do:

And what Passion encouraged 37 people to do the year following this race.

I want to be GREAT!