Carmen's Psychicdonut.com Blog

I could go into a long blog about why people settle. I could go on about people who don’t even know how it feels like to be high on life. But I am not gonna

I live a very passionate life. It doesn’t matter if I am talking about my career, my friends or my marriage, passion is something that has to be part of my being, just as much as breathing. Remembering back to the times in my life where I didn’t feel passionate about what I did for a living, the person I was with, or the lifestyle I was leading, always connects me to some of the unhappiest times I have ever experienced. I used to think that stability and predictability were most important to me, and they are. Alas, nothing makes up for being passionate. 

I remember when I was a kid. Of course, I wanted to be a famous singer or actress, but when it came to “reality” I wanted to be a cop, a lawyer and a doctor or nurse. For as long as I remember I was passionate about rescuing, saving or helping people, and for as long as I remember I had a very strong sense of right and wrong and wanted to “catch the bad guys.” So it wasn’t a shocker when I started my two-year internship at the municipal court in Mannheim to become a court administrator/paralegal. I did want to be a cop for quite a while, namely an undercover cop, but that required an additional three years of schooling and I hated sports and didn’t want to go through the police academy. I ended up working at the court for 6 years and worked all branches of its system, always being drawn to the criminal court the most.  

When I came to the States I had to take whatever job I could get at first and spent the first 7 years or so being a secretary, customer service rep, executive assistant and so on. It is fair to say that I hated these jobs. I found nothing appealing in fetching coffee and lunch for some arrogant prick, who neither appreciated me, nor liked me. And while I did work for one CTO of a legal firm, named Bob, as an executive assistant, who never treated me like a second class person and did make me feel appreciated, it simply wasn’t my calling. I just didn’t really know how to connect my passions with something that could pay my bills, and do it well. This is why I was so happy when I received the phone call from a small company named “GoTo,” who was looking for German speakers. GoTo became Overture, Overture became Yahoo and I spent 7 1/2 years learning about another passion of mine, leading and managing people.

I think the very fact that I was so passionate about it, made me pretty good at it in the long run. I viewed management as yet another opportunity to help people. I can honestly say that I was true to that mission most of the time. I had learned enough from bad managers who didn’t care about their staff and merely used them to climb the ladder, taking credit for the hard work they did, or being otherwise too busy shoving their heads up the butts of their bosses, to notice that they had people who relied on them to get a job done, or who needed feedback, or encouragement. I learned how there was a difference between motivation and inspiration and I learned that integrity truly is the most important trait as a human being and manager. I used all the bad boss experiences to decide how NOT to be.

Of course, as it turns out, I ended up being the head of the credit card fraud team. I guess fate has a way of pushing me into the path of right and wrong. Yet again, I contributed to catching the bad guys. And I loved every part of it, especially the prospect of working with the FBI, or other law enforcement agencies to catch the scum bags who were defrauding companies and innocent people.

This is what I am doing again right now. I am contributing to catching bad guys. And I am passionate about it; I love it. I can spend hours on websites that talk about the latest cyber crime fighting technologies and success stories, and somehow I never get bored with it. There is something deeply satisfying about doing “the right thing” in a world that I mainly see as a place that often rewards people for doing the wrong thing. I am currently catching bad guys in the gaming world, which links me to another passion of mine, online gaming.

I find it interesting how doing one passion ends up linking you to another. It’s like a chain reaction and proves that being true to oneself somehow always has a way of rewarding you. 

I have found a happy medium. I can honestly claim that I will never be a party animal, but I am passionate in everything I do. I am passionate about having at least two hair colors at all times. I am passionate about my tattoos, my beliefs, my convictions, my friends, my job, my co-workers, about helping those who need help, about doing the right thing and owning up to it when I messed up, about learning every day a bit more about life and how to be a better person, about my husband and about catching bad guys.  I am passionate about the possibility of leading the life I always envisioned and becoming the person I always wanted to be. And I am thrilled that I get to do all these things while sporting lots of tattoos, black and pink hair and a nose ring!

This is why it is so baffling to me when anyone out there chooses a life without passion. A life in which each day is merely another flatline from the one before. Living like that would make me suffocate. Thank god for passion and vitality.

Tags: be true to yourself, good life, passion

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 26th, 2009 at 11:41 and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.