The Virtues Basket: Finding Your Enthusiasm

Feeling enthusiastic in difficult times can challenge us – but like any other virtue, we can nurture our enthusiasm. This Virtues Basket video explains how we can generate enthusiasm in any situation.

When we feel enthusiastic, we do everything passionately — whether it’s exercise, cleaning, spending time with friends, studying, or working. Enthusiasm and the excitement that goes along with it raises the quality of our work and makes us feel happy. The Baha’i writings say:

Joy gives us wings! In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded. We seem better able to cope with the world and to find our sphere of usefulness. But when sadness visits us we become weak, our strength leaves us, our comprehension is dim and our intelligence veiled. The actualities of life seem to elude our grasp, the eyes of our spirits fail to discover the sacred mysteries, and we become even as dead beings. 

An enthusiastic person has a positive spirit and brings joy to everything they do. But nurturing our enthusiasm is a process: it requires learning to find excitement and to turn every circumstance into a positive situation by viewing it as an opportunity for inner growth. 

Like many other human virtues, the potential for enthusiasm exists within us all, but it needs to be activated and controlled through self-determination to become part of our subconscious. In his book “The Power of Self Confidence,” author Brian Tracy noted that “Belief creates the actual facts.” While external factors can trigger our reactions and may make us feel angry or unhappy, we can train ourselves to take charge of our emotions and embody enthusiasm in any situation.

Tracy wrote that our mind “can only hold one thought at a time: positive or negative.” We can condition our mind to replace negative feelings with positive goals that are future-oriented. We can also learn to identify and catch ourselves in moments of weakness. Then, we can take a deep breath, smile, and say, “Every situation is potentially a positive situation, if viewed as an opportunity for growth and self-mastery.”

When we’re enthusiastic, we free ourselves from external influences that cause us to be sad or negative, and train our minds to be consistent with what we want and the person we want to be. Then, we can harness the power of enthusiasm not only for our own benefit, but also to make the world a better place for those around us, through service to others. 

Abdu’l-Baha encouraged us to “become a lighted candle in the world of humanity, may be devoted to the service of all mankind, may give up your rest and comfort, so that ye may become the cause of the tranquility of the world of creation.” What better way to light the candle of our hearts than through genuine enthusiasm inspired by spiritual values?

This Virtues Basket video about enthusiasm helps educate the whole family about what enthusiasm really means, and how we can become like a lighted candle — motivated and happy regardless of the circumstances.