The Passionate Professional

By Clyde E. Gumbs

Born into a world

With expectations ready-made

A culture and society

Where I am told to make the grade

To have a good and worthy life

Is what I’m always told to seek

Find good work and a vocation

Is what I always hear them speak

But what is the point of work in life

How can I know what I should choose

What can I now profess to be

Where in the end I will not lose

Get good education and good training

Protect my status in all ways

Money I make also important

I hear these things so many days

Focus on benefits some will tell me

And all the perks offered to some

Focus on how I feel about my tasks

So days can be easy as they come

Others may say work is a sacrifice

A burden I am compelled to bear

It’s what I must do in life to make it

Whether or not I feel it’s fair

Some say it’s about my natural aptitude

And the good things that I can do

Some say it’s about what I have studied

And what I did and what I knew

 But none of this can really helped me

As through the wilderness I roam

At best it offers hopeless hope

But never can really get me home

But I was not born for validation

Or for what my ego says I need

I was not born to prove I’m worthy

I was not born to live in greed

I was not born to live from fear

Or to prove that I can survive

Not born for what is hard or easy

Or to be flattered while alive

I was born for blessed purpose

Reflected in all I do and be

I was born to fulfill purpose

I was born to fulfill destiny

I was born to be inspired

Blessing all alive and yet to be

An instrumentality of purpose

A gift to all humanity

I was born to profess passion

Inspired passion plain to see

Born to contribute all I am

Born to be merely what is me

I was born for self-expression

Not just to make it and survive  

I was born for contribution

Merely because I am alive

I am inspired talents and intentions

Divine gifts designed to flow through me

The conduit for eternal blessings