Caught between

I am writing this with one hand while holding one-month-old Ocean with the other. 
His life can still easily be measured in days and yet Lin and I are already talking about how we are going to help foster his dreams, ambition, perseverance. 

We are one part, get him involved in everything, soccer, painting, piano, climbing, surfing, reading, whether he wants to or not, and one part, provide him a blank canvas and all the encouragement in the world, help him pursue any curiosity he will.  How will we help him develop his passion? 

I find myself, at 33, as I parent myself, wondering how to help myself develop my passion.  

What is the balance between wanting to on one hand double down on ambition, discipline+passion, setting goals to strive for, and on the other hand, wanting to cultivate surrender, shedding of ambition that is rooted in ego, and embrace more fully the notion that I have no significance, no value, no merit to earn or prove?  Maybe as Ram Dass encourages, there is a better way to be, if you're a writer be the essence of writer, if a musician be essence of musician, if a mother, essence of mother, runner, essence of runner, but leave ego out of it.  Everything you do, do it as service to the collective.  Devote yourself to the craft not to earn, strive, or prove anything at all, but rather to create beauty, to help heal the whole, and to be more fully oneself.  

Something like that....a lot of days I'm still trying to prove that I'm worth being loved, on some beautiful rare moments I enter that flow of service and it feels like what life is supposed to be about.