Why do we enjoy some things more than others?

[Scholar]

What is the root cause of enjoying some things but not others? Why are we passionate about different things? Why do we find some things boring to do while others exciting?

 

Is this beyond our control or can we learn to cultivate passion for anything?

[Ananta]

It's mostly your conditioning up to this point in your life, but you can develop interests outside of your current interests, otherwise you'd never learn anything new. It may take the right time and the right place though to spark the interest.

 

[Derek White]

32 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Is this beyond our control or can we learn to cultivate passion for anything?

It is in your control. You can change it. That’s what Love/Open-mindedness is all about.

[Roy]

44 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Is this beyond our control or can we learn to cultivate passion for anything?

It is completely within all of our control. Most people simply don't experiment and therefore they never discover the potential passion hiding within something.

They stick within the confines of what is comfortable, and then make judgments and projections about things that make them uncomfortable.

Do not fall into that trap. You'll miss a lot of what life has to offer.

[Cocaomocao]

its all based on your life experience. things you see goes in subconcious mind. you have your own associations with eveything based on your body experience. so if you dont like something means probably you had negative emotions when you were interacting with this thing

[hyruga]

It's all your conditioning. 

For example, let's say you play tennis. 

Wow you are beating many people at tennis. You FEEL You Are gifted. You are made for this. You Play Even More tennis and you become better and love tennis even more. 

On the other hand, your friend gave up on tennis after losing a few games. He went on to focus on weight lifting. Blah blah. 

[electroBeam]

@Scholar This is an awesome question!

There is a 'you' that resists reality. You might feel uncomfortable when meditating; like your ass hurts. This is resistance. You might feel pissed off by what someone did. That's resistance. 

Resistance is essentially, life is not going the way your agenda and that voice in your head wants. 

And this is why you don't like some things. And this is why you like some things. Its all about you. You are why you like some things and not other things.

 

But then there is not things you like or dislike, but things that happen naturally. Things where the present moment autonomously and spontaneously strives towards. Like seeing an elderly person walking on the street with heavy bags, and maybe the urge to help them. Or seeing someone suffocating, and having the urge to call 911/000. Or seeing someone about to commit suicide, and having the urge to help them through it.

You don't like doing that, there's just a flow to do it. It happens naturally. 

 

And this is what passion is (or should be hahaha, for some its not). Passion is what flows, what draws God in effortlessly. 

Edited March 28, 2020 by electroBeam

[Hello from Russia]

I think a lot of it comes from your survival. Probably the more you transcend\ease your survival - the more stuff you'll be able to like and enjoy