Social entrepreneurship and the passion test

Just a week after I wrote out the answers to a mini-inventory called 'The Passion Test', I am finding myself in a degree of cognitive dissonance.

The Passion Test asks you to list then rate the things you most love to do. Doing so, however, reveals for me some really fascinating patterns.

Key here is the distinction between pleasure and joy. Pleasure involves sensory and physical satisfactions, necessarily transient and insubstantial by nature. Joy, on the other hand, is permanent and stable, like the time you shared your slice of birthday cake with someone else.

The two don't necessarily conflict. One can witness pleasures arise and fall over time without attachment. That's not the issue. What IS the striking, even startling outcome of my having done the Passion Test is the degree to which service and spirituality inspire me.

So today I started to dig into the pragmatics of this service business. I've spend the last hour looking around this social entrepreneurship phenomenon, and I'm pleasantly pleased to find it's not all shit. In fact some of it is cool.

But I'm not sure where to find the answers to my questions right now: what education or experience will lead me in a position to be able to use all my gifts and talents and serve others most appropriately? It's a big question, and I'm in no hurry to answer it. After all, it's arisen to be answered by how I live, rather than being answered by the finance reports of microlending startups which I have been so busy downloading the last hour.

Thanks for reading. I'll keep y'all posted.