What is Passion?
by Brian Morris

When people ask me how I am, my usual response is "Positively Passionate." Most people, let the unexpected words sink in. And then, they smile and their eyes sparkle. A few people get that deer in the headlight look on their face because a response other than "Fine", or "I'm here" is so foreign to them. They walk away assuming I'm a cult leader or something.

mara · a grateful fan

RE: What is PASSION??? Topic Question for all!

Catherine949 · Member

Donald Trump mentioned it on his show last season, The Apprentince.
I don't know if I got the spelling right on that, I remember he said if you don't have it you won't survive in this business or any where in life.
Something to that effect, I don't remember his exact words, i wasn't taking notes. but i got alot out of watching the show last season when he had Joan Rivers on I didn't want to miss her! She's got heart.

I think passion is drive, creativity, energy.

randy4sure · "Simplicity at its finest"

so i was watching zandalee while folding laundry (don't ask ) and nic is talking to reinhold about his need to paint. he said something like it made him feel like he could crawl up the devil's a**, smile in his face and not die. (not exact quote, but close). reinhold replied, "passion".

Oom · Soon to be retired blabbermouth

Hey TZ..........you are still young...........your PASSION probably hasn't reared it's pretty head yet!

I've only experienced passion once in my life and it brought me utterly and completely alive. I wanted to hold on to it forever! It made me energetic, creative, confident and even sexy.

Alas......passion can be whipped out from under your two feet and gone as quickly as it appeared.

BTW............I have just finished reading a book called THE PASSION TEST....The Effortless Path to Discovering your Life's Purpose.

http://www.amazon.com/Passion-Test-Effortless-Discovering-Purpose/dp/0452289858/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251826136&sr=8-1

It's a wonderful book that helps you define just where you REALLY want to direct your energies. This weekend I'm gonna be on my own and I'm going to take the opportunity to do all the exercises in the book and hopefully come Tuesday morning I will know exactly where to start in finding a new life path for me to set out on.

There is also a website you can check out that goes along with the book if anyone wants to check it out....

http://www.thepassiontest.com/TPT/Home/index.cfm

T.Z. · Space Knight

Thanks for the post, and for all your thoughts, gals :).

I'm thinking about passion now, and I still don't know what it really is! A few years ago, I took a quiz. It said that in normal life, I'm kinda quiet. But if I went to the 'right place' for me, I could be wild! Maybe my wildness is kinda like the passion. It comes, stays for awhile, and then it's gone. And I rarely realize it. But when I know that I'm having it, I feel so good, so alive. Like I never can lose my energy. Like "Bells will ring ting a ling a ting a ling a ling. And you sing Vita Bella" :). Maybe to me it's the feeling that makes me think that life is so beautiful, makes me want to help others and wantta live life happily :).

I just googled "Life sucks syndrome", it has 15 symptoms and I found that I have 5 of those :(.

http://www.briannorris.com/articles/lifesucks.html

Oom · Soon to be retired blabbermouth

Oh Goodness..........but the two of you have been hoodwinked, me thinks! I am currently searching for passion in my life tho. I'll let ya know when I find it! :)

mara · a grateful fan

We love your ramblings, Randy... please don´t stop them, we wanna hear more!! You sound like a passionate person yourself. Way to go!!

Thanks for your kind words of encouragement, dear, they´re most appreciated. I´ve had issues to find this kind of bliss all my life. I´m a very cerebral being, suffering from a passion-less syndrome, so to speak. Wasted time is irretrievable, but I took the cold decission to make a better use of the second half of my life in that regard... quite an effort, let me tell you, because it´s not in my nature.

Having said that, I have to answer Bonnie´s question in this way: you cannot fake nor rule out passion. Once you find it, it stays with you, nurturing your whole existence. And you, my dear friend, have a zest for life that it´s here to stay. Don´t tell us you´re boring, because that´s not true in the least and we can prove it, LOL! I agree with Randy in that regard... You´ve got this undying faith in the human being, and this insaciable curiosity for things. That´s a treasure!

I´m with Jenny in that the quotes from Adaptation define the best my feelings about passion. Susan Orlean says: "I guess I have one unembarrassed passion: I want to know what it feels like to be passionate about something". Sooo, my quest for the Ghost Orchid has begun! Wish me luck!

Great topic! I´m looking forward to read more people´s answers on that...

randy4sure · "Simplicity at its finest"

ahhhhh,bon. love your mind. i hate to disappoint you, my dear, but no one draws people like moths to the flame if they are boring. you are indeed, not what you feel yourself to be, but what others percieve in you in this case. you may not see yourself as passionate, but it is felt and reponded to, so therefore you must be passion-on-a-stick biggrin

. i like that this guy does not confuse passion with love. so many times the two words are used interchangeably, as if they are one meaning. you can have love without passion, and passion without love. of course to have both is supreme bliss, but rare. i think passion is the internalization of external stimuli that heightens the awareness of our senses. it can be focused, but not limited. there is a quote by abe lincoln about books in another thread that suits my purposes of illustration in this. i am passionate about books. when i am reading, i can become a part of the story. i move into that part of my mind that accepts the reality of the fantasy, employing the senses as an instrument to create the fantastical illusion of reality. see, that's what passion does to a person. i understand what i wrote, but i doubt anyone reading it will. ha-ha. okay. people respond to passion. there IS a reason they respond to you, bon. it applies in all aspects of life, but here is one of my early lessons. growing up, my father always told me to find my passion, and the money would follow. that most people have jobs to pay the bills, but that means they spend the majority of their lives with dulled senses. if you find your passion first, it will draw others to you like a magnet, bringing financial success. this is the path mara is treading courageously down. and she WILL succeed because the courage it takes to do what she is doing will make her more aware of how alive she is and be a magnetic draw to others. mara, does fear of the unknown coupled with boldness of self make your heart beat a bit faster, make colors more vivid, the blood closer to the suface of the skin sensitizing it? that, is passion. brava. i am proud of you. i could ramble for several more hours on the subject without making myself any more clear, so i will sign off now. well wishes to all. smile

Oom · Soon to be retired blabbermouth

Wow............I'm "walking passion"???? I've never looked at myself that way. To tell ya the truth, I think I'm boring as heck and I've only experience one real passion in life, which, well.............has proven to be a rather frustrating passion to have.

BIG SIGH.................

jenny · Resident CRAZY Doc

PASSION reduced world inot the sufferable size.

I love all quotes about passion from Adaptation, cuz i think this is true, and for me is also important to care about something Passionately........

BTW. BON, you are walking passion indeed.
jenny

Oom · Soon to be retired blabbermouth

Someone recently told me I was a 'passionate' person.
You know who you are.... ;)

which got me to thinking what really IS passion? With my grasshopper mind, I, of course, immediately got to googling the topic and the following is an excerpt that really "spoke" to me.

BUT before you read it...............Ask YOURSELF the question........What IS passion? Then....once you've mulled it over.....share your thoughts with us. We can all learn from each other...........

What is Passion?
by Brian Morris

When people ask me how I am, my usual response is "Positively Passionate." Most people, let the unexpected words sink in. And then, they smile and their eyes sparkle. A few people get that deer in the headlight look on their face because a response other than "Fine", or "I'm here" is so foreign to them. They walk away assuming I'm a cult leader or something.

Others get stern and ask "Passionate about what?"

Fair question. My response, "About life, and this opportunity to connect with you. I'm just glad to be alive and for having the ability to enjoy the world around us."

After reading the article below, I hope you'll challenge yourself to live with passion and take a few chances so that can celebrate your life and your calling. If you want some personal coaching or want to have me speak to your company, call me. Be Positively Passionate... because it creates a life worth living! -- Brian Norris

What is Passion? Passion is a gift of the spirit combined with the totality of all the experiences we've lived through. It endows each of us with the power to live and communicate with unbridled enthusiasm. Passion is most evident when the mind, body and spirit work together to create, develop and articulate or make manifest our feelings, ideas and most sacred values.

Passion enables us to overcome obstacles (both real and imagined) and to see the world as a place of infinite potential. The passionate spirit looks at every occurrence and discovers the golden kernels of what can be, what should be and what will be.

Passion has its own energy -- an energy that's observable and transferable.

Best of all, you can't fake it. Almost anyone, with only a bit of intuitiveness, can spot the charlatan. We can smell the lying wolf. We can sense a lack of sincerity, authenticity and depth. We can inhale the bitter, infectious dryness of the imposter's soul.

That's precisely why passion is a powerful litmus in determining the authenticity of an individual, an organization, a product or service. It supersedes the allure of expensive clothing and luxury vehicles. It makes transparent the hyperbole of the marketing gnomes and branding banshees. It strips away the thin veneer that separates what is said and what really is. The power of passion forces us to see others as who they are, who they are becoming and often, who they can never be.

Many men and women run from personal and professional passion because they're afraid of being burned. Past relationships that ended in searing pain. Trusts and confidences that were betrayed. Risk that lead to reprimand. Grand visions that suffocated beneath the heavy pillows of nays sayers, soulless logic and overzealous egos.

Consequently, they're afraid of taking the risks that come with living life to its fullest. Most people have touched the fringes of true passion, if only for the briefest moments, at the most unexpected junctures in their lives. They've inhaled the aroma of chance and caressed themselves with the rich lather of genuine affection.

Until they pricked themselves on the thorns of that desire and intensity -- and fled at the sight of the warm crimson blood bubbling to the edges of their virgin fingertips.

And they haven't returned.

Year after year, they stay away, opting instead for a more predictable existence. Rather than taking a leap of faith and immersing themselves in the waters of their deepest joys and motivations, they insist on hiding inside a safety bubble, a sanitary, lifeless, colorless world where nothing new ever happens and the only thing that one can rely on is that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday, and that today will be more of the same.

What we all need is a global return to passion.

We must trust ourselves to being receptive to experiencing every second of every hour, of every day to its fullest.

Can you imagine how much more meaningful our roles as parents, lovers, business owners, marketers, teachers and leaders (community, corporate and spiritual) would be if all of our actions were predicated upon our diverse passions?

Can you imagine a world where our marketing and sales strategies revolved around catering to the real needs of our customers' souls? If we only produced goods and service that contributed to our ability to live and communicate with passion?

Imagine a world where we lived for the moment and spent more time enjoying reality than trying to escape it. Imagine a place where we didn't need lawyers to go before judges, psychologists to tell us that we have emotional problems, or clergy to talk to the Creator for us.

That is the power of passion.

We, as a collective, can make this evolutionary step forward by realizing first that one of the tenements of humanity is our capacity to experience and respond to feelings. Tears of joy and sadness, spirited debate, anger, unfiltered democracy, lust, pride, zeal, conviction, love, compassion -- these are not, can not be sins. Rather, they compliment another tenement of humanity; the gift of free will.

The real sin is lacking the courage to express our convictions and zest for life. It should be a crime to bottle up the passion you once felt as a youth so that you'll fit into a controlled corporate environment or circle of associates. In fact, the closest we can come to a physical hell is the unforgivable action of refusing to say what needs to be said, not singing what was meant to be sung or forcing ourselves to no longer feel what was intended to be felt.

Passion shapes our existence, fuels the fires of inspiration and makes the heart and mind open to changes all around us. It is food for the soul, a spark that reilluminates our purpose and mission for being here. Passion is yours to experience and revel in. And even if it causes you to scrape your knees or fall into that raging river called life, passion is your birthright. It is within you. It is yours to discover and master.

Brian Norris is the author of Escape Life Sucks Syndrome. He is a leading expert who speaks to organizations about the need for personal and professional passion and positivity. You can reach Brian by calling 414-899-1905 or emailing info@briannorris.com

-- Edited by Oom on Friday 21st of August 2009 01:59:17 PM