Passion
Quintessential questions for passionate people
Passion is the miracle that turns work into play, and suffering into joy. True passion is success waiting to happen, not because it can, but because it must.
Successful blogging is founded on passion. It has to be, whether it’s your business, your job, or your hobby. If you can answer yes to any of these questions, then passion isn’t your problem:
• Do you have a person, an idea, or a calling, that wakes you up at night with your brain racing?
• Does your passion bounce you out of bed in the morning, eager (or anxious) to get going?
• Do you resent other activities getting in the way of the one thing you’d rather be doing?
No passion to declare? Don’t despair!
If you had to answer no to these questions, then it’s probably fair to say that you’re not in passion melt-down. Don’t despair. Passion can find a way in, if you let it.
But first, let’s illustrate passion with an example:
Passion and the defence of freedom
From 1940 to 1945, one man stood between the might of the German-led Axis forces and the annihilation of democracy.
Winston Churchill divided opinion wherever he went. He was loved—and loathed. But his passion to resist Nazi world domination unified a fearful Britain.
Through five desperate years he persuaded a beleaguered people never to give up. With sheer persistence, he won the support of an inward-looking United States to join the Allies and finish the job. Through that passion, democracy survives today.
But I’m no Churchill!
Neither you nor I is a Churchill. We may not have the capacity or the ability to taken on the world and its causes. But in our own hearts, we have what it takes to triumph over ourselves.
In tiny steps, we can whittle away our weaknesses, and marshal our energy towards collective victory. And even if that victory is minute—losing weight, consoling a friend, maintaining a relationship—we can share it with pride and humility. Your smallest hill of achievement is someone else’s Everest.
Blogging and new world power
Blogging—telling and sharing our stories—means belonging to the world’s most focused self-help group where the only competition is yourself.
Old world media concentrated communications control in the hands of the few. Blogging reverses that fundamental, delivering equal voice and reach to all who want to exercise it.
Where and how do you find passion?
Remember the old saying that it is better to give than to receive. The human brain is hard-wired to recognize good over evil and to give and yearn for love. Passion comes from within. You can find it by asking yourself these three simple questions:
• What really matters in my life?
• How can I use it to make a difference in others’ lives?
• Who are those others?
Answer these questions honestly. Then turn those answers into action, no matter how small—learn something new, join something different, give something more. One action, every day, until the action becomes you and you become it.
Then start by creating your own blog
Remember too that we are part logic and part emotion. Sure, the mixture fluctuates. Our emotions respond to the on-sale new car advertisement when there’s nothing wrong with the old one. Logic justifies the decision by pointing out the savings we’ll make if we buy now.
You can mix the two. You can be logical about passion, and passionate about logic. Just be sure that when you speak, it’s in your own voice.
Passionate blogging
Social media, especially blogs, have grown up. They’re no longer teenagers blowing bubblegum in their parents’ faces. They’re now young (and not so young) adults with some distinctive ideas.
It’s time businesses stepped back from the traditional marketing blueprint and joined the conversation.
Roger McDonald is a guest blogger on http://whyyoumustblog.com and partner of Sandy McDonald. Together they share their passion for blogging as a top strategy to build an online community for your business or organization, based on all they have learned from building and growing KasCare (and it’s program knit-a-square). KasCare is a 5,000 strong member-based, international, online charity, devoted to the issues of children made vulnerable or orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS.
