Hyun Joon (my swimming friend) reiterated a similar commitment. Parul, you have worked so hard on your swimming for that last 2 months, you possibly cannot stop once your running picks up. You will forget the finer points of your stroke. Yes, I agree. Hence, I must<\/em> continue.<\/p>\n I meet a writer friend who patiently explains, that to excel at anything one needs to put in 10,000 hours. What am I doing to better my writing? Like I\u2019m working on everything else\u2026 Good question. Nothing much. Life has a way of passing me by, right from under my nose! (the TV magically turns on after dinner and soothes me to sleep!) But I will break out of it. I must<\/em> write. Everyday. At a designated time.<\/p>\n And running, well, running has now been ingrained into my being and despite whatever else I may add to my life, running will always remain. In some form or the other. As an integral part. Right now, I am in the speed mode, looking to better my pace, in each race. Thus strength training and tempo running is my staple diet. I must<\/em> kill myself on the track.<\/p>\n Hard work, endurance and commitment is what we need to convert a hobby into a passion, into a skill. Else, it will remain superficial.<\/p>\n What defines us are our passions. Yes, we have careers, relationships and titles. Several. And we should fulfill them with complete honesty and dedication. But what drives us, what we long to do, what we dream of while we work, what we read about on Facebook during meetings, things we will remember in our twilight years, are those, which we must<\/em> do.<\/p>\n Should is how other people want us to live our lives. It\u2019s all of the expectations that others layer upon us.<\/p>\n When we choose Should, we\u2019re choosing to live our life for someone or something other than ourselves. The journey to Should can be smooth, the rewards can seem clear, and the options are often plentiful.<\/p>\n Must is different. Must is who we are, what we believe, and what we do when we are alone with our truest, most authentic self. It\u2019s that which calls to us most deeply. It\u2019s our convictions, our passions, our deepest held urges and desires \u2013 unavoidable, undeniable, and inexplicable. Unlike Should, Must does not accept compromises.<\/p>\n Must is when we stop conforming to other people\u2019s ideals and start connecting to our own \u2013 and this allows us to cultivate our full potential as individuals. To choose Must is to say yes to hard work and constant effort, to say yes to a journey without a road map or guarantees, and in so doing, to say yes to what Joseph Campbell called \u201cthe experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.\u201d<\/p>\n Choosing Must is the greatest thing we can do with our lives.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>“Does what goes on inside show on the outside?,” young Vincent van Gogh despaired, in a moving letter to his brother, while floundering to find his purpose.”Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney.” A century later, Joseph Campbell wrote, every day, countless hearths and hearts grow ashen in cubicles around the world as we succumb to the all too human tendency toward choosing what we should be doing in order to make a living over what we must do in order to feel alive.<\/p>\n