Dare To Live A Passionate Life Without Regret

The only way to live a life without regrets is to live the full expression of what is inside of you. Hold nothing back; put everything you have on the table.

The mark of a successful life is to be able to say at the end of the day, “I gave everything I could have given; I followed my curiosities to their end.” That is a life without regret.

Life is not like a game of cards—there is no use in saving your best hand for a better time. The only time you are guaranteed is right now. If you don’t strike while the iron is hot, you will lose the inspiration that struck you in that moment. Inspiration is, by its very nature, magical. We cannot predict when it will stir, how long it will stay, where it will go, and if it will ever return.

If you deny your intuition and your passions continuously, you will stop being able to hear them altogether. You will create blockages to your own true self. So listening to your intuition and following your passion is truly a matter of life and death, because abandoning your true self is abandoning your life. 

On the other hand, when you fully follow the nudges of your intuition, you discover your passion, and your thirst for life will increase every day. If you don’t know where to start, ask yourself these questions: What part of life fills me with a vortex of creative energy? What question only leaves me with 10 other questions? Then, follow your passion to its end. Do not live with a trace of it unearthed, simmering inside of you.

Passion also evolves over time, but the source is the same. You can’t cling to passion. It comes and goes like the wind, and it is always available. Clinging to passion, whether in another person or a project, is like bottling up air and storing it on your shelf. It is an act of fear, and it stifles inspiration. You can only express inspiration as long as it is working through you.

Your passion for drawing may morph into a passion for cooking, but the important thing is to continuously manifest what is inspiring you at this moment. A writer is only a writer so long as words come to them—and where do they come from? Any writer knows that they can’t take credit for their work. Most days, stringing sentences together is more laborious than childbirth (well, maybe not quite). But some days, something hits you, and the words simply flow, and the mechanism is totally unknown to you. Creatives don’t wait for inspiration, but they know it when they feel it, and they always try to seduce it back to them.

Passion is beyond you. Passion ignites our lives. To deny your natural inclinations is to deny life. It is to betray yourself. It is to live a life full of regret.

If you don’t know where to start, begin where you are, as you are. There will always be more than one option in life, more than one path to follow. The tragedy is that we often follow none because we are waiting for a clear indication, a clear voice to tell us, “Yes! That is your path.” Instead of being Buirdan’s ass—the thirsty and hungry donkey who is unable to decide whether to drink water or eat first, not realizing he could do both eventually—dive headfirst into the unknown without worrying about other possibilities. Live your life fully today, every day, and you will live a passionate life with no regrets.