First of all, you might need to determine if you suffer from depression. Have you always felt that you had no passion towards anything, even when you were a kid? If you have never felt any passion towards anything, you may be suffering from depression and if that’s the case, you will need to get that sorted out first.
If you are not depressed and you are just having a hard time finding your passion(s) then you will have to change the way you look for your passions. I’m the type of person who is easily amused and finds interest in the smallest of things, so I have lots of passions and am almost never bored.
If you are the kind of person who is often bored and can’t see the wonderful things that are all around you, then you will have to try another method of finding your passions. I suggest making a commitment to yourself to try new things each day, week, month and year. You’ll probably have to make lists to make this easier (but hopefully it will be fun too).
For example, each day, vow to learn the definition of a new word. My brother used to do this when he was a teenager and it has lead to a lifelong passion for learning, reading, knowledge and general word-smithing.
Decide to eat a new food once a week. When I became a vegetarian, nearly 25 years ago, I realized that I was going to have to find new foods and learn how to become a better cook and be an avid reader of food labels and to ask lots of nutrition questions. So now I am passionate about cooking, eating, reading and creating recipes, reading and writing restaurant reviews, going to new restaurants, learning about good nutrition, sharing recipes with other people and so on and so forth.
Make a list of foods you have never tasted, or ethnic cuisines that you have never tried. I’ll give you some ideas for ethnic cuisines: Thai, Indian, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Peruvian. Here’s some food that I love that freaked me out when I was much younger: kimchi, spicy salsa, raw root vegetables such as radishes, rutabagas, turnips and beets, greens such as kale, arugula, radish sprouts, sauces and other add ins such as sriracha, and apple cider vinegar or sambal oelek, or brinjal aubergine pickle, or vegetables such as shiitake mushrooms, butternut squash, edamame, and Brussels sprouts. And don’t forget about the scary sounding vegetarian items such as: miso, tempheh, tofu and nutritional yeast. There’s a million different kinds of cheese, taste them all! You can also try eating foods that you already like, but with different preparations such as grilling, roasting, braising, pickled, made into soup, put onto a pizza, baked into a lasagna, or served raw. Here’s a few examples of things that I have eaten in a non-traditional manner that I loved: grilled green onions, pickled red onions and pickled turnips, sweet potatoes baked into a lasagna, broccoli, mashed potatoes and arugula on pizza.
Now that you are going to taste one new food each week, and learn the definition of a word each day, you should choose a new activity to try each month. Some ideas: visit a museum (art, history, aviation, natural science, space, planetarium, whatever sounds appealing) look in your local paper or free activities circular for stuff to do like hikes or nature walks around your area, free concerts, photography groups (or just go out and start taking photos of stuff that looks interesting to you, and then manipulate some of them on your computer) take a dance class (hip hop, ballroom, swing etc.) take an art class and learn to paint or sculpt or make jewelry or ceramics. See if there are lectures that might be interesting, they could be on any subject from how to optimize your health, to a forum about craft beer making, to discussions about movie making. Are there any parks, rivers, lakes, beaches, sand dunes, forests in your area that you have not explored? If so, make a decision to go to some of these places, pack a lunch and bring your camera and a friend or two. Take a cooking class, learn knife skills or how to make a Thanksgiving meal for a crowd, or how to make sushi.
Are there any writing contests that you can find in your area or online? One of our local entertainment papers has weekly contests for writing about restaurants, movie reviews, concert reviews and other things. You can sometimes win a few bucks for a hat or a T-shirt. By entering some of these contests, I became inspired to be a writer, something that had never even occurred to me at all. I got interested because I was interested in the subject that they wanted us to write about, but then I became interested in writing itself. See how that works? One thing leads to another.
Now that you will be tasting and defining and going to places and activities around town, make another list of things that you can plan ahead for, that might be interesting to do once or twice a year (the planning process can be half of the fun, itself) So what might you like to do? My brother and I like to plan day trips to places that are less than 2 hours away from home. We’ve gone to art exhibits, walked around downtowns seeking out public art and architecture, we’ve gone to destination restaurants, went on hikes in the desert and the mountains, visited historical places etc. But you should also try to plan some actual “vacation-like” trips too. Go camping, stay over a few nights in a fancy hotel, go to Vegas and take it all in (the casinos, the buffets, the Red Rock Canyon) visit a city or state that sounds appealing (for me those might be Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Austin, Miami, Vermont, Colorado, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe)
In the meantime, think about learning to play an instrument, learn photoshop, take a quilting class, take a cheesemaking class, start going to movies and then write little reviews for them on Netflix or your local entertainment paper. When was the last time you went ice skating at your local rink? Do you like animals? Volunteer to socialize dogs at your local shelter. Ever taken an improve comedy class or a creative writing class?
The possibilities are endless, but you have to start by making a concerted effort to try new things, or give older things another go, if it’s something that you kind of liked, but never took it further. Now go out there and find your passion : )
