Ooooh what a subject for a Sunday morning!
Passion can be defined as a “very strong feeling about a person or thing” or “an intense emotion, a compelling enthusiasm or desire for something.” Everything from chocolate, football, politics to saving the world has stirred passionate feelings and arguments in pubs or in families, so it can be a destructive emotion as well as a positive one. Passion is such and individual thing! We can all feel passionately about our country but the degree will vary from person to person as will the extent we take it to.
So what drives our passions in life?
Are we born with it?
Is our passion driven by the genuine need to do good, or is there a hidden agenda? Is passion driven by greed or selfishness, the want to be seen to do good but at the same time benefit? I guess it is the old contradiction of can we actually do a selfless act with no benefit to ourselves.
A friend of mine, lets call him Joe, has a total passion for his car. It is his life and he bores everyone senseless with his chat about the restoration, the endless descriptions of the various repairs and his search for the authentic gear stick. Bless him, he has even dragged me round endless car stores researching the perfect red paint! Friends often complained that he needed to “get out more” but the fact of the matter was that apart from his job, Joe had nothing else in his life. He had had the seemingly perfect marriage, house and family combo, but his wife had an affair and when they divorced her very clever lawyer literally left Joe with his car and his clothes. Having lost his real family, he adopted his car and shifted his passion to care for it. In his own words “at least I know when it is about to screw me over”!
Then there are those who turn their passions into a career. Just look at the number of entrepreneurs who start businesses from a good idea, from something they developed for their own use and end up selling the widget thingy for millions of pounds. Or perhaps their passion to change a small thing in their life develops into a big thing that employs, changes and develops others. As my boss at 29studios often says …
Then, my friends, there is the mix of passion and belief! A sometimes volatile cocktail that can improve the world or make it a scary place to live in. I am lucky enough to know, and be inspired by, friends who take their belief and use it for the good. Stepping out from the crowd to stand up for what they believe in and never waver no matter how often they are criticised! The people who genuinely do use their position in the community to promote everything from ethical stances to “independence”.
So what, apart from family, friends, gin, coffee and Bradley Cooper/George Clooney what are my passions in life?
Well that is actually a very easy question to answer, my passion is life! Having hit a few bumps in the road I am now passionate about living my life to the full, doing what I want to do and scaring myself stupid by stepping out of my comfort zone. Rediscovering that at 52 I was not doing what I wanted to do changed my thinking and helped me make that decision to find new passions in life to drive myself forward.
Passion is about not standing still, in my opinion it is finding that one thing that fires you up and fills your soul. Once you discover it, the important thing is to not let it totally consume you, after all variety is the spice of life they say or is the thought of a variety of passions too much for a Sunday morning!!!!!
Go on find the spice!
G
Gin or Gym 