"But what is passion, really?"

Wil je hiervan een Engelse vertaling? Hier is hij, zonder verbindingsstreepjes en met behoud van de directe, speelse toon:

Mr. X: "I do enjoy my work, you know." "But passion?" "What am I supposed to imagine by that?"

I was in an important meeting, with a bunch of senior gentlemen. Suddenly it went dead quiet. Honestly? I thought he was joking. But the man looked deadly serious.

"Hmm. Not a joke then, after all."

How can you not know what your passion is? You feel that, surely? You do know what gets you fired up, don't you? What makes your heart skip a little jump? A feeling of euphoria when you're doing it? That you lose track of time? That you feel as if you'll burst apart and little stars will go shooting in all directions? Or is it because I'm a girl?

Time for a teeny tiny bit of research on passion, so off goes a message to some menfolk and womenfolk. I did ask them to keep it decent. Just to be safe. There are quite a few jokers and clowns among them.

The result? The menfolk had actually really thought about this! So many lovely answers!

From a few, though, first the check up question of whether everything was okay with me.

Others had a need for more framework and guidelines (you wouldn't expect that, would you?!).

One all but came back with an actual PowerPoint presentation.

Another is still figuring out whether something is a hobby or a passion. Good question, by the way.

Anyway, men's passion, a few responses:

Having/making impact when things succeed, when I have the best gear, when I can crush it, when I deliver the best performance, when I win, when I experience success, when I'm the best, when I can make the world a bit safer, when I can find the best recipes, when I can perfect the result. When I'm in control. Wow. What a lot of do energy!

The feeling of happiness in your body was mentioned only once. Gosh.

On to the ladies.

Feeling butterflies, feeling happy, energy in your body, happy life happy mind, not being able to sit still, feeling driven, wanting to get going right away (without a plan), wanting to tell everyone about it (and convince them, haha), enthusiasm, twinkles in your eyes, a little fire being stoked, you lose track of time, you can keep going without getting enough of it, a hysterical pink cloud, your stomach doing a little jump (I found that an odd one, mine doesn't do that), you feel that it's right. A euphoric feeling. No angling, best gear, no urge to prove or perform. But feeling, yes. Lots of feeling, let's say!

I do look at Mr. X differently now. How brave it actually was to ask about passion in a meeting. With colleagues you run the whole show with. Apart from objectives, targets, KPIs. How vulnerable do you want to get?

Passion gives flow. And flow goes hand in hand with mental well being. Flow is your compass, you see. By checking in on it every now and then, you notice whether there's enough balance. Whether you should be doing more of something. Or actually less. And in the end none of it matters one bit. Whoever you are, you are you. As long as you know what flow means for you, then you're already well on your way.