Passion: Strong, enthusiastic devotion to a cause, ideal, or goal and tireless diligence in its furtherance.

I thought that I had passion when I was 20. I was involved and active but I was just learning to see.

I thought I had passion when I was 30. I was involved and active but I was a new mother looking after my own.

I thought I had passion when I was 40. I was involved and active but my vision had only spread to my community.

I thought I had passion when I was 50. I was involved and active but it turned out that I was only just beginning.

At nearly 60 I have seen hunger for power, status, position, hunger for wealth, possessions, stuff, things, ALL of it nothing more than GREED. In the attempt to satisfy that greed, I have seen people lie, cheat, steal, risk lives (their own and others), hurt people unintentionally and intentionally, and any manner of other atrocious behaviors. People will do anything to attempt to have a bigger piece of the pie for themselves.

I have seen these behaviors in myself, my family, my friends, my neighbors, and in strangers. I have seen these behaviors in ever place I have lived or visited.

And what does all of this bring us as individuals, families, communities, countries? Peace? Satisfaction? Joy? Happiness?

At nearly 60 I have at last visited Africa. I have met people who have no-things: not retirement security, neither health security nor health, neither food nor water, neither parents nor guardians, neither peace nor safety: all of which I have had or have in more abundance than they can even dream of. In these people I have met people who are gracious, generous and loving. I have been humbled, awed and inspired.

In this next phase of my life, I hope that I am going to be able to use the skills I have to help empower people to obtain happiness: a life with sufficient food and water, clothing and housing, health care and education opportunities. A life in harmony with the people around them and with nature. A life with an abundance of love, smiles, laughs, hugs, kisses and joys. A life with the internal and spiritual strength and the family and community support to help through the inevitable pains, tears and losses. A life that has enough "things" and "stuff" that it is comfortable but not so much that someone else does without. A life described by the Buddha and shared with me (a Christian) here in Thailand as the Middle Way.

So now, my passion points everything in my life toward seeing how I can share the talents I have to help in that goal. I see my teaching skills being used to empower people with language, information and technologies that will open doors to them to lift themselves out of poverty. I see my teaching and writing skills in some small way also working toward clarifying faulty assumptions that have driven us to the brink of destruction. I see my life as a visible manifestation of my beliefs and I try each day to work on the many areas where the self-centered greed still has me in its nasty grip.

Specific Tasks:

• Savings and loan amortization tables for LiA - Done but need to be sent. SENT
• Creative early childhood education links for a woman from the Gulu conference - I have them but I have lost my notebook from Gulu with her name and address in it.
• A copy of the Thai report on Sufficiency Economies - I have requested it in electronic form but again, I have lost the names and addresses of the folks who wanted it. SENT
• Investigate how to encourage the development of open source financial software specifically for the use of LiA (and maybe <Ned>?) but perhaps more generally available to other NGOs I am finished with this project for a while - Mark is still working on it
• See if I can find connections for Charity's (my Kenyan Fashion Consultant) passion to save and restore the water sources that are being lost to deforestation and population expansion in a part of Kenya that she loves. Done
• Work on my PhD to see if I can interpret Buddhist Economics for a Western audience and promote sufficiency economies. Well under way
• Work on no-more-big-white-trucks.org - The ugliest manifestation of greed I have seen in recent years. Looking for assistance.
• Work on sufficiency-economy.net - Finish editing the Thai translations to English. almost done - if the university would just PLEASE give me the DNS addies. sigh TIT

But, now that I am home, the first priority is getting my grades submitted for the semester.

Thanks, David, for inspiring me to organize my thoughts.

[**Edited by author: Linda &quot;Blessed by Gulu!&quot; Nowakowski on 07 Mar 2007 03:22 PST: oops...had problems...needed to reboot and edited this to complete it ]

[**Edited by author: Linda &quot;Blessed by Gulu!&quot; Nowakowski on 15 May 2007: updated the check list.]