Ode to Passion

What makes one passionate?? In other words, what is the precursor to passion? Burning desire, yes. Unfulfilled dreams? Anger? Despair? Joy? Success? Profound loss? Passion is defined as an emotion, a strong or extravagant fondness toward a person, thing or ideal. 

We are quintessential people watchers, now more than ever in history. We can see from the moment we wake up until the moment we collapse asleep, on our smart phones, what everyone ‘else’ is doing, saying, feeling. 

So, what would YOU say is the precursor to passion? And Success require passion?? 

Andrew Carnegie, the great Steel magnate of Pittsburgh, when asked by interviewer Napoleon Hill, what makes men ‘great success’, answered, a burning desire and definiteness of purpose. (We are welcomed to now extrapolate this to what makes women great, as well).

What is YOUR burning passion when it comes to your daily work?  your daily life? Do you feel as though passion is necessary? How does it drive you? Do we need to stoke passion? Is there a natural ebb and flow? Can too much passion have a negative effect?

As we round out a more than exceptional year, what would your definiteness of purpose be for THIS year, let alone, next? And perhaps more importantly, if you knew what the precursor emotion was (for you) to that of passion, what can you do to elicit that precursor NOW, to set the year straight, if it wasn’t as you would have liked it to be.(?)

It is my hope that this reflective letter to our readers brings a spotlight on his subject in good timing this year.