CEBU, Philippines - February is the month of passion and for this, a famous pizza chain named their new offerings as the Passion Specials, for two reasons, their manager said. First is because February is the love month and with love comes passion. Then, come April is the lent season and we’ve all heard of the Passion of Christ, right?
But just what is passion? Do we need to engage in lust or suffer in the process just because we are trying to pursue our passions in life?
World renowned London-based life coach, Mike George, believes otherwise.
In his life changing website, relax7.com, Mr. George pointed out three definitions of passion.
He said that passion is sometimes equated to the act of procreation, the so-called physical expression of love. However, he said that the act of “making love” is not love at all but lust which is described as “the selfish pursuit of the fulfillment of a physical desire,” a form of addiction. For this reason, lust cannot be passion, otherwise passion would be unhealthy.
Another example of passion that is all too common today is the passion of anger. We sometimes hear people die or do drastic things for the cause that they are passionate about. Have you heard of the news of an environmental activist in the US who got convicted of arson because she burned a school facility? It is said that she cared so much about the environment that she just had to do something to stop those whom she believed was destroying it.
Mr. George said that care is not anger. He added that “to call anger passion is more likely a way of avoiding self-control because the presence of anger means there has been a loss of control.”
How about the passion of Christ? A perfect example of suffering for one’s passion, but Mr. George said that passion cannot be a form of suffering. He argued that suffering is suffering.
So just how does he define passion?
Mr. George wants to equate passion with that of an artist’s drive to create. He believes that with passion comes enthusiasm.
“When our core energy, our spiritual energy, moves through us and out into the world in a natural way, creative way, we experience and feel what is known as enthusiasm,” he said.
He added that one who is passionate would be enthusiastic of his work from the time he creates it to the moment of sharing that which he has created to others, and even in going back to the drawing board to create another.
“We are all artists as we all get to create our own lives,” he said.
But why is it that sometimes we lose the enthusiasm to create? “Because we learn to miscreate! We create desires, anger and sorrow instead, and it’s these miscreations that... destroy our passion for living, and participating fully in our own life,” he said.
He said that finding one’s passion in life needs self-awareness and self-understanding, adding that this awareness comes with the realization that the “energy required to fulfill that (creative) process is unlimited in supply within your own heart.”
“When discovered you will know enthusiasm, you will be enthusiastic and others will see and feel someone living their life ‘with a passion’,” he concluded.
So, with whatever that you will be doing today, “attempt to be enthusiastic before you start and during the process,” and see how you would fare.
Craving for more inputs from Mike George? Check out www.relax7.com or visit the Brahma Kumaris Meditation Center in Forest Hills, Banawa, Cebu City.