One of the things that breaks down both people and organizations is complacency. That attitude of “well, it’s almost good enough” or “it doesn’t really make a difference if I try any harder” are the leading causes of death among prosperous careers. It is one of those things that, when you see it, you have no choice but to stop it and provide new direction. That to me is the difference in being passionate about what you do or being complacent and accepting average results in what you do.
Those who do not understand passionate people are usually either unhappy or unwilling to do anything more than the least bit possible to succeed. The unhappy are usually spotted because they are negative, have bad attitudes, poor work ethic and usually spend as much time complaining about the people who work with passion as they do actually performing their own work. The unwilling are simply the ones who are just happy getting by with no extra effort. They usually don’t have great expectations for their own self nor do they see any runway for a great future if they were to work harder and try to really make a difference. To sum it up, people who do not understand passion generally fail at work and life when they are placed around a group of passionate people. They cannot keep up the pace with those who have passion for all things, nor can they stand to see others move that much further past them.
Now, insert a person who is truly passionate and here is a list of words to describe them:
- Ambitious
- Hungry
- Energized
- Eager
- Willing
- Aggressive
- Never Give Up
- Positive Attitude
- Accepting
- Relentless
Some of these words may seem threatening, but for myself being a person who is very passionate, these traits are things that are necessary for people who really want to succeed around me. I am also not naïve enough to think that everyone who I associate with will be a person of passion, but for those who really want to grow and take themselves to another level, this is probably the number-one prerequisite. The passionate person is one who never gets defeated when they hear the word “no,” and never backs down when they are up against a challenge that is truly greater than they are capable of handling. It is a person who is unwilling to give up and usually accepts more fault themselves when things go wrong rather than point fingers at other people. The passionate person is one always eager to learn something new and continually looks for a new way to do something.
The traits above for a passionate person embody the simple reason why some people just don’t understand passion. There is oftentimes a war between the complacent person and the passionate person, and you probably don’t have trouble guessing who will win that war. The person of passion. They will work harder and try harder, thus, generally, they are the winners when faced against someone who lacks passion. Not that everything in life has to always be a war, but generally these two mindsets do not bode well together, and at some point, chaos will erupt.
Passion will win against complacency every day. Even passionate people will sometimes fall into a period of complacency, but they will always be able to pull themselves out of it in the right circumstances. There is no moral to this story or groundbreaking conclusion to this article. The whole point for those who read it is for them to be able to analyze people of passion and people of complacency, and to see why they will never be able to get along.