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Passion or Pastime?
Figuring out whether we’re “doing life right”
On a recent trip home, I was having a conversation with my sister when she received a text. A look of relief washed over her face as she read it.
“Thank God, my whole day is saved!” she exclaimed.
“What’s the good news?” I asked.
“There were some dinner plans up in the air tonight. We just finally decided where we are going, and I have a favorite dish there so I know EXACTLY what I’m going to eat and my whole day just came together knowing that it’ll end with that dish.”
Whoa.
I think my face said it all, because she laughed. Then she asked me a serious question:
“Do you think it’s bad that I plan my day around my meals?”
My answer was: it depends. For a chef who is passionate about cuisine, planning a day around meals makes sense. And while an architect like her can certainly be enthusiastic about food, I wasn’t sure it could be considered a “passion” unless she was putting energy into researching cuisine and somehow contributing to the forward movement of cuisine as a field.
And “research cuisine,” she certainly does. Reading restaurant reviews and chatting with her boyfriend, an actual chef, about food take up a not-ignorable portion of her day.
