The birth of Passion.

January 16, 2007

January 15, 2007

It was Saturday night at approximately 1:30am when I discovered my daily fitness blog site: fitnesscure was having technical issues. Apparently, while I was devising a new tribute site to my grandfather, I had accidentally canceled my fitnesscure account. After 2 hours on the phone with a very nice guy named Dan from my hosting company, I was asked to either pay a hefty fee to retrieve all old information lost during the cancellation or ‘start all over’ again.

While my intention during the creation of fitnesscure was to post daily motivations, intriguing articles and present today’s fitness role models – it wasn’t a site I capitalized on. It took daily commitment to post each day regardless of the growing ‘hits’ I received on a weekly basis.

In this crossroads of personal investment – I asked myself whether or not it was necessary to continue a journey where I received no instant reciprocation from my endeavor. In these last busy weeks, I already felt the burden of owning that site increase…but now that I was forced to make a financial decision, I had to again re-think the effort going in and the rewards coming out.

In fact, in these past few months I’ve thought about the word ‘passion’ and ‘love’ quite often. When Louis and I broke up in September, I wanted to stop posting my fitness journals and being an active and supportive member on his site: vivalafitness. When I fought with my father the other week, I wanted to drive home and break my promise earlier that day to cook dinner for the family. When I was challenged in my work environment late last year, I wanted to quit and walk away with my pride still intact.

But as I stood in these crossroads I knew that the one guiding road that will always bridge happiness was “love.” Through spiritual text, I knew Love was an unconditional, unselfish, unwavering passion you feel for a person, place or thing. Through personal experience, I knew Love was servicing others through your actions without any expectation of reciprocation in return.

Today I realize more than ever that Love is a personal act not dictated by any external motive but an internal passion to give…. In my life, the people who loved me most were those who lovingly serviced my needs when I had nothing of personal value to offer in return.

There is a value attached to every exchange in life. However, the real value occurs when you still give even though you receive nothing of perceived ‘value’ in return.  The realness that occurs in that type of exchange is where passion is formed

In the end, I remained an active member on Louis’ site, I cooked dinner the evening I fought with my dad and I stayed committed to my work and passion to make a difference through the 24hour Fitness network….And as I gave Dan the last 4 digits of my credit card, I knew that amongst all the ‘hits’ I received…I know someone out there read that site and received a positive energy and motivation from my effort in writing those words each day.

And while I’ll never meet all the people who read my sites, as I reflect tonight, I know all of you have made a difference in my desire to take loving actions today. It is this invisible love that I hope extends far past the journals I post each week.

Thank you for reading and Happy Martin Luther King Day.

Journal Pictures: January 15, 2007

Roller blading with the kids to the park! That was a looonng journey!

Doesn’t Tahjai take the funniest pictures?!
Here we are saying bye to mommy!

I am going to be a super, fantastic, cool mommy one day!