Passion The Anatomy Of Success English Literature Essay
“I shall energize my dreams, no matter how impossible, with positive determination and indefatigable spirit as I uphold my right to do what I do best and enjoy most.”
The parts of the human body once had a summit with the agenda of determining their significance to human existence. Dr Brain asserted that he was the central processing unit of the body and therefore claimed to be the most important. Professor Heart bragged that if he stopped functioning, Dr Brain would die along with all the other parts. Mr Blood laughed at this and explained that Professor’s Heart’s bragging was really all about what Mr Blood did. Ms Liver reminded Mr Blood of her cleansing role, the absence of which would poison Mr. Blood. Mr Lungs arrogantly claimed that it was the oxygen he brought into the body that kept all the organs alive and functioning. Chef Stomach reminded Mr Lungs that there was more to living than just oxygen and the nutrients he derived from food were as vital as the air. As each organ bragged about his supposedly predominant role in human existence, the usually militant and very sensitive Mr Rectum did not argue and instead filed a notice of strike and notified everyone that he would not work for one week.
But even before one week had passed, all the body parts submitted a resolution affirming that Mr Rectum was the most important of them all and elevated him to the Hall of Fame of Human Anatomy Awards. No one dared argue.
With due respect to Mr Rectum, this chapter shall highlight two organs: the heart and the brain.
Cardiology 101
When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are. Anything your heart desires will come to you.
This song which has since become the theme of Walt Disney movies and television was written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for Disney’s 1940 film adaptation of the Pinocchio story. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in that year. These are two lines from this well-known song which convey great adult lessons. It says that when we dream, nothing changes as we remain the same persons that we were before. It however assures us that the secret towards the attainment of any dream is whether the heart desires it.
What is in the heart that makes miracles happen in our lives? Cardiology 101, the study of the heart, will attempt to explain it.
Anatomically, there is nothing in the heart that relates to feelings. It has four chambers each uniquely compartmentalized but interactive with each other. Physiologically speaking, the heart is the vital organ whose only role is to circulate the blood throughout the body. The veins deliver the blood that is circulated by the arteries back to the heart. The small capillaries work as the microscopic delivery trucks to the smallest tissues and cells. There is a brief stopover of the circulation in the liver for cleansing, and another stopover in the lungs to give up the waste called carbon dioxide and to shop for life-sustaining oxygen. If the heart beats 80 times per minute in 60 years or so, you can just imagine how hardworking it has to be to sustain life throughout the life cycle.
The heart works to contract and pump the blood to the entire body. But as it rests and relaxes, the heart still works. As it relaxes, it has to refill to prepare for the next contraction. In a cardiac cycle, one-third of the time is for contraction and two-thirds of the time is for relaxation, which in fact is still work as it rests to refill. By coincidence, eight hours is one-third of twenty four hours. Is that the wisdom behind an eight-hour work day for employees? Are we relaxing to refill? Makes sense! Lesson of the heart: spend two-thirds of the time relaxing to refill…recharge. Otherwise, you may have nothing to give.
The heart is chiefly governed by electrolytes. It is affected by the brain but the heart independently does its work based on the bathing of the positive and negative ions fed through its cells. They say that given a required supply of the electrolytes, the heart may continue to pump even outside the body. Could this be the reason why when the mind tells you that you cannot do something, but the heart is determined to achieve it, the body finds a way, no matter what? Maybe that is the physiological explanation of why the heart is referred to as the source of courage. In fact the root of the word courage is the French word “coeur” which means “heart.” Courage is not absence of fear; it is the mastery of fear.
The heart is as important as the other organs of the body; however it has nothing to do with control of feelings and emotions. There is nothing in the heart that regulates feelings.
Neurology of Emotion
Human emotion is governed by the brain, not by the heart. Neurology, as the study of the nervous system will explain this.
The emotional memory bank is the amygdala located in the inner part of the brain. The amygdala plays an important role in major emotional activities like friendship, love and affection, as well as in the expression of mood. The amygdale is fundamental for self preservation. When triggered, it gives rise to fear and anxiety which lead the animal into a stage of alertness, getting ready to flee or to fight. People with damaged amygdala lack the ability to respond emotionally to their environment. They may see a familiar person, but do not have the capability to respond emotionally to such an encounter.
A lot of research has been carried out which seeks to make known and understood the wonders of the human brain and the complexities of the human being. Emotional intelligence has been thoroughly studied and written about. There is conclusive evidence of its value to life success and happiness in the intrapersonal, interpersonal and organizational domains. Tools which can measure emotional intelligence have actually been developed. And since the quotient may be improved throughout life, training and reading materials are widely available to enable individuals to learn to harness and channel emotions effectively and productively in a highly scientific and technologically driven world.
But the brain does not express emotion. The brain however triggers several somatic or bodily responses which the person feels. The heart feels it most when the physiology of the heart alters its beating and signals the internal change. The person may neither feel nor understand the brain, but feels the heart, which is why we refer to the heart any intense emotional charge.
Heart or Brain? Quo Vadis!
There is a debate as to which one we should use in making decisions. Lovers are advised to use the brain and not the heart, as love and the lover are blind. On the other hand, it is also advised to listen to the heart for in it lies the inner voice or wisdom. But who really cares?
God must have a special purpose for the wonders of His creation within us. The holistic perspective of a human person should end all debate about it. The concept of holism asserts that:
The whole is more than the sum of all its parts. The story of Frankenstein proves that the disordered and unsystematic amalgamation of even the best body parts to create a whole person may produce a monster.
The part cannot be understood if it is isolated from the whole. A painful toe is better diagnosed with, not in isolation from, the entire body.
It is the whole that determines the nature of its parts. It amazes us to watch a physically handicapped individual perform better than an anatomically complete person.
The parts are dynamically interrelated. What affects an organ affects the whole body and its entire functioning.
Our complexity as human persons neither rests on one particular organ nor on a system. We are just too complex. For prosperity’s sake, we shall optimize the value of the heart and the mind, and engage the entire body towards bringing success and happiness into our lives.
…We call this PASSION!
The Dreamer and the Doer
What drives a dreamer to become a doer? Passion! When the sense of purpose is matched by love for what you are doing, the result is passion. The “sense of purpose” comes from the mind, while “love for what we are doing” comes from the heart. The mind provides the direction, as the heart provides the drive and commitment to pursue it. The mind dictates the altitude, as the heart spells the attitude. The mind guides the body with reason, and then the heart moves the body with passion. The heart conceives of the end, the mind provides the means. As the commercial says, “what the mind can conceive, the body will achieve.” For prosperity’s sake, we call the synergy of the heart and mind, passion. Passion fires up the connection between the dream and the dreamer.
As Trump prescribed: “Find your passion.” How do you know it is your passion? Doing it gives you a joy that goes beyond the merely physical or the sensual but emanates from your inner being. You enjoy doing it because it gives you a feeling of fulfilment and deep-seated joy once you have accomplished what you set out to do. The passion to present his vision of God creating man and the separation of light from darkness is what drove Michelangelo Buonarotti to paint the Sistine Chapel over a period of four difficult years.
The dreamer will be energized by what he visualizes in the fantasy world. The dream creates the spark. And as soon as the passion is infused into the dreamer’s dream, the fire is set ablaze, giving rise to the doer.
There is no stopping a person who is doing things that are aligned with his passion. Everything will fall into its proper place, and the universe will be there to support it. Then greatness comes in.
Denis Diderot in 17th century opines that “Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.” As Hebbel in 18th century puts it, “Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.” In contemporary times, John Maxwell re-echoed this in saying that “a great leader’s courage to fulfil his vision comes from passion, not position.”
A horse race is recorded as the greatest sporting event in American history – that was the race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral in 1938. Despite his short legs, bent knees, and an odd gait, Seabiscuit was the winner and became a national celebrity. He got more publicity than any human being in his time. In 6 years of triumphs and disasters, Seabiscuit earned 33 wins, 15 second places, and 13 thirds in 89 amazing races. When Seabiscuit died, the heart and head were buried while the body was discarded. This act was done in honor of the understanding of how the head and the heart contributed to the horse’s greatness.
PASSION STREAMS BLESSINGS
Divine blessing shall be showered upon the tasks that are performed with love and come from the heart. The Book of Chronicles was clear in saying that “every work which he began in the service of the house of God in law and in commandment, seeking his God, he did with all his heart and prospered.”
The passion we infuse in our dream, goal, plan and action will energize the intensity of our commitment to achieve. It buries the dream, goal, and plan deeply into the unconscious and makes action seemingly easy, effortless and natural.
I have not seen a successful entrepreneur who has reached the zenith of his success without passion. Entrepreneurs’ wealth comes from their passionate pursuit of what they love to do. I have not seen excellence in a setting where there is no passion for perfection. An excellent workplace has a free-flowing culture that has a life of its own in the organization. I have yet to see extraordinarily productive people who achieve success without the passion for result. With passion and the commitment that it begets, work ceases being work and becomes play.
In this book, we encourage you to find your passion and convert the dreamer in you into a doer, and your dream into reality. If passion is discovered BY you and is WITH you, great things will happen TO you and FOR you BECAUSE of you and the flow of blessing is showered THROUGH you.
THE PASSION MURDERER
We were born to dream and we sustained the limitless possibilities of our existence until we became older, when we began to replace our dreams with worries. Many parents transformed their children into cowards by their almost obsessive fixation on the physical well-being of their sons and daughters when they were growing up. When they stumbled while running, they were admonished to stop running lest they suffer serious injury. The fall wasn’t fatal but the warning was lethal as it caused the child to avoid taking risk and to second guess all his future actions.
I remember watching my kids compete in their martial arts summer workshop. I was more hurt seeing my kids absorb the shock of every blow they received. I did not like what I saw, because I am not a physical person. I did not encourage them anymore. Now my kids are growing as anxious and generally fearful as I had always been with a tolerance for pain even much lower than mine. I infused my own fears and apprehensions into my children who should have learned from their own experiences instead of drawing their uneasiness vicariously from mine. If I had not been in the tournament, my kids could have been wearing black belts by now. Did I do it for love? No! I did it because I can only see the world the way I see myself. I was not a physical person, and I saw the punches only the way I would have taken them, not the way my kids were trained to absorb them. After realizing this, I tried to encourage them. But it was too late. I killed the passion of my kids to learn martial arts by my own irrational self-obsession.
The impossibilities are only in the mind. In fact, some things work because we don’t know they are impossible. If others can, why can’t YOU. But let me rephrase that: If others can’t, the more you should believe that you can. The great Oprah Winfrey advised “Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.”
Interview 1: Steven Cua
Steven Cua believes that in business, passion is the difference between achieving success and fading away. “There is no business which will survive without passion,” he says, “you need to find a sense of purpose.”
That passion drives him to juggle the complexities of managing Welcome Supermarket: keeping the shelves stocked, maintaining the variety of products, following up on regular customers and overseeing his staff. “Business is an ongoing concern… It’s not just making money,” he points out, “you can delegate but you need to be on top of things.”
“Once you have passion,” Steven observes, “you become keener, more aware of what’s happening around you.” He feels that passion brings “a deep sense of appreciation for what you have and what you can do … to help others.”
He has found his greatest fulfillment in reaching out and helping the people he meets develop themselves and achieve their own success. “Everyone is a diamond,” he muses, and takes time to promote entrepreneurship, even among his own employees.
“The business you need to get into is something that you really enjoy, that gives you thrill. If you really love doing it, it doesn’t feel like work. Enjoy what you do,” he advises aspiring entrepreneurs and encourages them: “The pot of gold is out there … for your taking.”
Interview 2: Chit Juan
Chit Juan wakes up every morning, excited to have her first cup of coffee and do her work for the day. “I love to see the sunrise. It inspires me. It’s like a new day, a new beginning…,” she ponders. She awakened the coffee industry as well, when she established Figaro Coffee in 1993. This business led her to study issues surrounding coffee farmers throughout the country. Her company made the firm decision to support and buy from local suppliers. This has become their edge, attracting socially-aware coffee drinkers, who in turn converted others also as more and more consumers have taken into patronizing Filipino-made products.
Juan’s passion has not been limited to promoting the Philippine coffee industry. With 2 friends, she opened the Echo Store that has served as a depot for different local products, from accessories and bags using recycled items, to organic food, to biodegradable cleaning items, among other innovative and ecologically-friendly goods. Her team has been providing advice to the producers in People’s organizations and cooperatives, in maintaining good quality and creating packaging that will attract high-end buyers.
She confesses, “I’m a serial entrepreneur. Mahilig akong mag-isip ng bagay-bagay (I love to think of many things), how to look for opportunity in a crisis…this what drives me and I get inspired by accomplishments. A lot of my friends say that I’m crazy pero pag nagplaplano ako, pag nagschedule ako, pagtumama lahat yun ..tuwang tuwa ako (but when I plan and schedule something, and it becomes a hit, it makes me so happy). It’s such a fulfillment. Sa akin hindi yun trabaho (For me it’s not work).”
With entrepreneurship, Juan believes, “it’s a game of chance but you have the chance to manage the game.” She advices new entrepreneurs not to be afraid of failure as it’s always a lesson in disguise. “You do your best, she says. “Dreams are for free! I believe that everyone should have a dream no matter how crazy, no matter how silly, no matter how simple or how big but have a dream. You should always have a carrot in front you. I don’t think that anyone has any business staying in this world kung nanonood kalang (if you only watch). You should be proactively moving.”
But even with her active life and meaningful and creative pursuits, Juan makes it a point to relax and reflect at the end of each day. She says, “I love the sunset. I love the gust of wind. I love nature and its beauty. It’s priceless. It’s something that can inspire you and everyone can have it.” And the next morning, she wakes up ready and full of inspiration and passion anew.
ĠNuggets of Wisdom
The dichotomies of life are the midwives of the passion within our beings. Here are some of these that may unfold your passion.
Pursue the big goals with a bigger determination and the biggest passion.
Access the impossible through the mindset of possibilities.
Soar high above the sky amidst the storm.
Secure success through the times of failure.
Inspire the highest level of faith in the lowest moments of frustrations.
Overcome the biggest obstacles with small steps towards greatness.
Nurture strength and validate the need to overcome weakness.
Pursue the big goal with a bigger determination and the biggest passion. The determination to achieve the goal should be bigger than the goal itself and should be driven by the biggest passion that will surpass any obstacle along the way. If the determination and passion are not bigger than the dream, the hindrances may just appear too much and may cloud your vision of your goal.
Access the impossible through the mindset of possibilities. Everything is possible when you believe, believe it or not! If you doubt, you are probably correct. But if you are sure, you are also correct. Be equipped with the mindset that it can be done and it is possible. That will render the impossible nothing but a myth.
Soar high above the sky amidst the storm. Eagles don’t hide under the trees when it rains. They soar above the clouds, where there is no rain. They don’t fly by straining their wings; they soar using the power of the wind. Learn the lessons of the eagle.
Secure success through the times of failure. Failures are stepping stones towards success. If others can’t do something, the more you should be challenged to believe you can. The more you fail, the more you should be determined as you strategize on how to succeed. Failures are the building blocks of success.
Inspire the highest level of faith in the lowest moments of frustrations. When you are bottom low with frustrations, hold on to faith. Faith in yourself and faith in the Someone bigger than any problem. Faith is to believe what we do not see; the reward of it is to see what we believe. This Augustinian message is sound and clear.
Overcome the biggest obstacles with small steps towards greatness. Use the lever of greatness to move the biggest obstacle using small steps. As the challenge goes: give me a lever long enough and I will single-handedly move the world. Take solutions one step at a time and surely you will overcome any obstacle.
Nurture strength and validate the need to overcome weakness. Strength is your capital. Nurture it. Don’t focus too much time and energy overcoming weaknesses especially if they have nothing to do with the core competency your project needs. Manny Pacquiao need not overcome his speaking accent to become the greatest boxer of our time. But surely, he gets better and better in boxing because his focus is squarely on his fighting skills. And the world remembers his distinctive accent. You can learn anything, yes! But not everything. Live with some of your weakness and ignore them, unless they affect your strength. Pour your passion into your strength to capitalize on it.
Ġ3-Point Action Steps
How do you find your passion? Let’s do this!
Step 1. Come up with your Top 10 Lists –
List 10 unique TALENTS you are blessed to have been given:
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List 10 WORKS you will do even if you’re not paid to do them:
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List 10 UNIQUE ABILITIES you have that people around you say you are good at:
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List 10 things you ENJOY doing even repeatedly:
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Step 2. After having completed these lists, identify a common theme. You will find commonalities in the lists; determine the major commonality or cluster of your talents, your unique abilities, your favourite tasks and the tasks you enjoy. This holds the key to your passion.
Step 3. Now ask yourself, how will you be able to make full use of this passion to unlock the door of prosperity? How will you convert this passion to a discipline that will achieve results? How will you convert this passion to excellence? You are ready for the next chapter.
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