What does it mean to be passionate?
A while back I wrote an article on my company blog about passion. It was a general article about the passion I have for Creospace broken down into a few sections with a few lines about each.
Someone suggested that I write an article about each section and expand on my thoughts so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. But before I start I thought it might be a good exercise to look at passion and what it means to be passionate.
The dictionary says: PASSION: a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music.
An article on wikipedia says this: Passion ( from Latin verb patior meaning to suffer or to endure) is an emotion applied to a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something.
I think linking love & passion together is interesting. I’m quite sure that you can love something without being passionate about it, or at least in today’s society you can. It’s common to hear people saying they love their dress or they ‘love a macdonalds’ for instance. I don’t believe those people are passionate about their dress or their big mac!
Passion as an emotion
Also If as is suggested by wikipedia that passion is an emotion, I’m not sure I agree with that. You never hear people saying about others that they are too passionate but people can be heard saying that someone is too angry or too sad. It’s certainly got emotion in it but I don’t think it’s an emotion itself.
It’s very very difficult to accuse someone of being over passionate. In contrast to above you never hear people saying “he’s just too passionate for his own good” or “I really wish she would knock off the passion” do you? Well at least I’ve never heard anyone say it.
Admiration for passion
How many times have you heard people talking about others and saying “I so admire his passion” or “she’s so passionate about what she does” ? I’ve heard it loads and I really think those people that are saying it as well as admiring the person they speak of they are maybe jealous or wish they had some of that passion as well.
They definitely are saying that to have passion or be passionate is a really good thing. They aren’t negative criticisms, or at least I don’t think they are. Passion is admirable without a doubt.
For me passion is something that both comes from and also when expressed connects to my soul and gives a real deep connection with that that I am passionate about. It is something that is part of me and not something that comes from simply doing well.
In the coming weeks I hope to publish a series of short articles regarding passion and specifically looking at the following subjects:
- Passion for the brands I’m responsible for
- Passion for great customer service
- Passion for people
- Passion for working with great people
- Passion for delivering great solutions
- Passion for ridding a profession of bad workmanship
- Passion for giving professional & informative advice
Here’s a challenge to leave with you: Be passionate in everything you do and communicate it with unbridled enthusiasm. Easy yeah?
What things are you passionate about? What do you think about passion? Please do leave a comment and join in the conversation.
