Passion is everything.
It teaches us so much that you would never even notice it unless you really looked at yourself and your life.
I have a healthy passion for landscapes and adventure. Every time I find myself somewhere remote, I find myself. I learn things about myself.
In each place, my passions lead me to some new detail about my being that I was not aware of before.
One place will always be overtly special to me because of what my passions taught me. It was the first place we fully immersed ourselves in for a project I had over a year ago.
Being in the middle of a desert winter, you find out really fast that you do not have any of the right equipment.
Driving down an uneven road in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by nothing but desert darkness, turns into off-roading quickly when you do not have the right car.
Trying to sleep that night was nearly impossible: it was 23 degrees sleeping in a tent on the cold desert ground – but when I say sleeping, it was more like shivering and trying to find a position to lay that was not unbearable, because, at this point, comfort was not an option. The sleeping bag I had was more like one you would use at a sleepover in elementary school (frankly, that is exactly what it was because that was how long I had had it), and the ground did not help at all because we forgot the sleeping pads that were a definite necessity in this weather.
The hike the next day and the views in the valley of the hot springs were worth any trouble the night before had given us.
It was simply beautiful, as nature always is, but it still amazes me every time.
But what truly amazed me was just as much as this beautiful place: the man standing next to me. Completely willing to, on a whim, drive three hours out to the middle of nowhere to a campsite that was not a campsite, only to lay on the ground in a tent with all the wrong equipment and get absolutely no sleep and then hiked six miles the next day exhausted, just to see the smile it would put on my face, and the passion in my eyes.
These hot springs are where my passions taught me that I could love again.
And it is just one of the things I have learned from them.
Everyday, they teach me something new about myself, about others, about nature and about my relationship.
I believe wholeheartedly that the best way to learn is through your passions.
Let your passion teach you.
Because without it, what is left?
