Passion or Motivation

I am hearing the word passionate a lot lately. A multitude of personal statement in bios I’ve come across recently all seem to see their natures as passionate. Perhaps they are but I also wonder if these autobiographers really understand the difference between motivated and passionate?

The root of the word passion finds its meaning in the word ‘suffer.’  Motivation is rooted in the language of movement. While both words carry a sense of desire, and of willingness to sacrifice, passion implies an intensity that might even override the line of sanity and threatens to dovetail into obsession.

Not that it need become total obsession in order to be truly passionate. Yet the level of intensity, the depth of how powerfully connected and intertwined into the fabric of our daily lives something becomes in fact dictates whether it is merely motivation, like, love or actual passion.

I hope to write and explore more on this topic in the coming days and weeks but for right now let’s start by asking this simple question: what are you willing to give up in order to achieve your dream.

 If the answer is ‘a lot’ you may well be deeply motivated.

If the answer is everything, we may actually be in the territory of passion.