TED Community » Catherine McMahon

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  A reply on Conversation: How do you "measure" the GREATNESS of your life and career? What to you is evidence of a life well lived... your heart, other's opinions...?

  Apr 9 2012: Hi Colleen, it would be beautiful if love was our passionate goal but sometimes people have a passion for success or self-assertion that squashes love. (By the way, I understand passion as a powerful emotion that drives you towards a goal). Passion and love can and should coexist but I think it's not a given. You can love without passion and you can have passion for something without love. What is ideal is to love passionately. (Hope all this makes sense!)

• A comment on Conversation: How do you "measure" the GREATNESS of your life and career? What to you is evidence of a life well lived... your heart, other's opinions...?

  Apr 8 2012: I think it's important to follow your passion but I also think what is most important is to find your happiness outside of yourself in others. Sometimes you can follow your passion to the detriment of love and that's sad. Love is hard, can be hurtful.. but it is also so rewarding and it makes us more human. Passion is beautiful and necessary but not the sole meaning of our life. It's an emotion that drives us towards a goal... but let that goal be love.

• A comment on Conversation: How much time do you spend in the "virtual world" of on-line communities?

  Apr 8 2012: I try to avoid using FB and the likes. I actually pride myself at this stage when I haven't logged on in more than a week. When I am online, I try to make sure I spend no more than 15 minutes. It's not that I'm seriously disciplined but after experiencing being on FB for an hour or so, you log off feeling like you seriously wasted your time. I see more and more friends less interested in Facebook.. but then you get involved in other gadgets, like the iPads, etc. If it's not one thing, it's the other. I do relate to what Sherry T. said about finding it easier to text/email than to converse. I see myself doing it all the time at work. I think solitude is really important. But not in the sense of sitting on a chair in meditation, but rather avoiding distraction and dispersion. I'm actually trying to focus myself more lately, "stick to one thing and finish it well" rather than multitasking. It's my little goal.. I think it helps.