So caught up are you in the hustle and bustle of daily existence, delivering what's expected, but at the end of the day you feel as if you have accomplished nothing. Your life is moving along, but it seems to be leading you nowhere, and before you know it, the years have been wasted. Even in the midst of all your achievements, you are not truly and completely happy. Grateful, yes, but not happy nor satisfied. Between achievements and happiness is the missing link - passion.

Passion is a strong feeling, one that sometimes blows even the best of us out of our minds, the one thing that frees us from the prison of monotony, the fire that pushes us beyond are limits and which yields a great sense of satisfaction. Passion is apparently the one thing that seems to be lacking in many of us. It is what drives us to mediocrity, to conformity, and to boredom.

Life is beautiful, but you cannot appreciate its full beauty if you live simply because society dictates it. If you want to come to a better appreciation of life and yourself, then you need to let your passions out. But how can you do that if you don't even know you have them in the first place, or what they are?

First things first; if you want to discover what your passions are, take some time off from your work and go someplace where you can think without getting distracted. You may need more than a few days to do this, so do bring along a few personal essentials, a pen and paper, and nothing more. You'll be doing a lot of thinking and writing and nothing else, so bringing something that gets in the way of your concentration will not be useful.

The first activity you will be doing is to list down your dreams as a child. What was it that you really dreamed of becoming? Never mind if they sound crazy. It never hurts to relieve those dreams, and never too late to follow them either.

Then make a list now of things you can do well without much effort. Go back to your past if you have to; try to think many years back when you were probably 8 or 10 years old. What were the things you could do very well then but which took very little effort on your part? What about when you reached the period of pre-adolescence, what were the things that made you excel? Did writing come naturally for you? What about dancing or sports? These skills still might come naturally for you today.

Now, put a ring around the things that you have loved doing as well. You will want to focus on these areas later on. However, you may not like to do everything you are naturally good at, and this is worth pondering over, too.

Make a list, too, of all things that makes you happy and which give you a certain kick doing. Identifying these will eventually lead you to a discovery of your passions. And once you know what these are, take courage to let them out in the open, even if it means breaking the laws of conformity. Then and only then can you experience complete satisfaction and say, "I have lived my life as it is meant to be lived."