Passion

I love passion. I love being passionate, receiving passion, witnessing passion. I love loud passion, discrete passion, angry passion. The Ancient Greek origins of the word passion (from pashko) define something that you want and that you are willing to suffer for; Wikipedia describes it as “a term applied to a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something. The term is also often applied to a lively or eager interest in or admiration for a proposal, cause, or activity or love - to a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion, a positive affinity or love, towards a subject, idea, person, or object. It is particularly used in the context of romance or sexual desire though it generally implies a deeper or more encompassing emotion than that implied by the term lust”.


A recent article I read talked about how our current generation of youths are being ruined by the concept of passion. The article went on to describe that passion was being bandied around as a fad (apparently, there were 40 books on passion published in the 1990’s; and in the 2000’s there were 4000); and that the spouting of passion as crucial to the fulfilment of individuals in western society is causing youths to seek a means that may not exist. Some view it in far more sexual means; passion.com is a website where you can “find hot singles and sexy personals”. When coaching for professional job interviews, young people like myself are warned not to mention that they are passionate, but to describe themselves as hard working and enthusiastic. Passion, it turns out, can be such a dirty word.

All of that being as it may be, if you are passionate you can’t just turn it on and off (and trust me, I have spent quite some time in my career focusing on tempering my passion to something more palatable for the average person). Being a passionate person, I struggle to live a life I am not passionate about; and I draw such strength and courage from the passionate people around me. It can be hard to be passionate, for so many reasons. Sometimes it is because those around you cannot deal with the energy a passionate person has; I have memories of sitting at my local hairdresser early on a Sunday recently, whilst the apprentice bounced around with the energy of a young child, getting mildly irritated at the fact she was disturbing my peace… at which point it dawned on me, that is how most people must feel around me. It is also hard because your passion draws out the fear in other people; it can make them realise they aren’t happy or passionate about their own life, at which point they begrudge your passion and wonder why they don’t feel like that – although I suspect super-passionate people are born that way and probably couldn’t change if they tried! Being passionate is hard because it makes you constantly question whether you are doing the right thing in your own life; your own internal meter goes askew, tells you something doesn’t feel right, and no amount of logic rationalisation can convince you otherwise. My good friend Wendy calls it pursuing your true North; some call it your moral compass.

Being passionate is also a blessing. It can make mundane tasks fun; it makes you the centre of many things, including your friends and parties. People can find you inspiring, and knowing you have made someone smile is a wonderful thing. Marco Simoncelli was such a person, as is Valentino Rossi, a close friend of his. The loss of so bright a spark has an even deeper bitterness associated with it. As I write, Julie & Julia is playing on the television, and the passion of two strong women fills me with warmth and smiles. I feel particularly stirred by it for two reasons. Julie and I have many parallels; she has just turned 30 and is struggling to find passion in her day to day life, so she turns to two things she loves; cooking and writing.  Julia inspires me because she approaches everything in her life with such joy and tenacity. I can find so many people who have inspired me at times in my life because of their tenacity and passion; my mother, who despite so much hardship, has always maintained unwavering passion for me… “you can be anything you want to be”; Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, the science educator I would love to be; my amazing partner Danny, who loves motorbikes, his Princess, and politics above all else (he can even make politics seem cool sometimes); Nelson Mandela, whose passion for justice overrode all else; my friend Jimmy whose passion to succeed puts even me to shame; Tristan, a dear friend whose unbridled childishness and enthusiasm may possibly even exceed my own; Kristen Davies, my own diva friend who makes me proud to be tall, outspoken, and a woman; Jovita, a partner whom I worked with in consulting and possibly one of the most inspirational young women I will ever meet.

So how is this related to procurement? Well, I work in procurement, and I am passionate about it. As much as any one can be about any professional career that doesn’t change the world (and that is something else I am passionate about; but it is for another day). What I am NOT passionate about is that procurement is still regarded with distaste in Australia; our European counterparts do procurement with passion and pizzazz far better than we do. I am not passionate about the fact that so many ‘professional’ procurement people are not much more than store-people who have moved up the chains, and wouldn’t recognise a strategy paper from a 3-carbon copy purchase order. I am not passionate about the fact that most firms in Australia don’t have a chief procurement officer that sits on the board at CXO level. I would also like to think that I have the passion to drive that change in Australia, one firm at a time; but I also have other passions that all compete for my time. I would love nothing better than to own a bar, a chic bar in a dark Melbourne alleyway. I would love to write and publish books (and hence why I am participating in NaNoWriMo – writing a 50,000 word novel in the month of November, and falling behind on word count… part of the downside of being passionate is that you take on too much and struggle to keep up). I would love to teach yoga, martial arts and fitness classes to kids and people from underprivileged backgrounds. I would love to own a country property with horses, and ride them every day. I would love to marry the love of my life, have children, travel the world, live in crazy countries, hike mountains in time to see sunrises, and drink lots of red wine.

But for now, I need to save some passion for tomorrow… another week trying to elevate procurement in the eyes of my professional peers. How does a passionate person fulfil their needs ? Perhaps pursue them one at a time, until the next passion takes over. Perhaps indulge other passions on the side. Perhaps live their passion day in and day out. One thing is for sure; no one can tell you how best to manage your desires. It is surely something only you can decide for yourself.  So off I go, until next time… maintain the passion.