Filed under: Life
In times of emotional uncertainty, human beings tend to think too much. When something is bothering us we roll it over in our minds over and over again until it becomes much worse. My method of coping with life’s trials and tribulations is to listen to music. Music is supposed to soothe the soul. There are some things however that won’t go away no matter how hard you try. Death, for example, is an obvious tragedy that, on various levels, provokes unavoidable sadness.
But another matter that triggers feelings of loss and depair is something that, to me at least, seems ridiculous - intense feelings of affection. When this is not quite reciprocal where do we end up? When we want something so badly that it hurts. So badly that it’s all you can think about and it affects you to the greatest extent. Until finally, it gets to the point where all you want is for the feelings to go away.
But why does this happen? Why do we torture ourselves in this way? It struck me that that one way to conquer these feelings is to understand what we are experiencing. A few years ago, in my limited experience, I thought that the concept was connected to an inbalance of power. To an extent it probably is. But in reading, and further life lessons, however, there seems to be another reason. I believe it is much more simple than our minds make it: it is about passion.
Without having this term properly described, this seems like a very abstract concept. The word ‘passion’ comes from the Latin patior, meaning to suffer or to endure. It is an emotion of feeling very strongly about a subject. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for anything and often requiring action. It often applies to lively or eager interest in or admiration for a proposal, cause, or activity. These feelings can be expressed as a feeling of unusual excitement or enthusiasm about a subject, idea, person, or object.
According to author and journalist Thomas Friedman, passion and curiosity are key components for education in a world where information is readily available to everyone and where global markets reward those who have learned how to learn and are self-motivated to learn.
Friedman states, “Give me the kid with a passion to learn and a curiosity to discover and I will take him or her over the less passionate kid with a huge IQ every day of the week.”
In the same way passion is related to education in an academic context, it too is related to emotional learning. If you go through life without feeling and experiencing, the whole rocky ride would not be worth while. Passion will motivate us to one day get the things we want the most. Until then, the pain that come out of these situations will make us stronger.
We all have feelings, we are human. But the more we experience and the more we learn from them, the better we will be for it.
