What Is The Difference Between Passion And Obsession?
Passion and obsession are two very close realities, but also very different. While the first corresponds to a great flow of emotional energy that leads to overcoming one’s limits and going beyond, the second paralyzes the will, or rather, places it within very limited limits.
It must also be said that passion and obsession are contiguous realities. In other words, in many cases you start with a passion for something and when you cross a certain boundary, you enter the realm of obsession. Therefore, it can be said that obsession is a kind of excess of passion.
It is plausible to say that passion and obsession are two sides of the same coin. Both subjective realities are made up of great emotional involvement and maximum attention and focus. However, one represents the constructive side and the other the destructive.
passion and obsession
In many cases, passion and obsession follow a line of continuity dictated by external factors. Normally, everything starts with some activity that you enjoy and in which you suddenly discover a very special pleasure. She is so attractive that the person starts to fall in love.
Passion makes him dedicate a lot of time to this activity and strive to do it with ever-greater standards and perfection. Then come the achievements and recognition for the activity performed; just then the problems begin.
It turns out that external validation can operate as a negative factor. What was previously done spontaneously and just for fun, has now become an activity where you seek to get a specific response from others. You no longer enjoy the process, you enjoy the result. That’s when you start getting obsessed.
the labyrinths of obsession
When you become obsessed with an activity because of the response you get from the results, joy turns to worry. You depend on others and that is unsettling and stressful. In fact, there are studies that show that an addiction develops so intense that it can even lead to unethical behavior.
As the result of others’ actions and validation response is out of control, obsessive passions are accompanied by restlessness and often frustration. Dependence on others’ validation is not only emotional, it has also been proven to become physical.
There is evidence that this excessive preoccupation with the approval of others floods the body with dopamine and, therefore, configures a kind of addiction. This, of course, reinforces the dependency and puts everything in another logic. There is effort and even exhaustion and, at the same time, uncertain results. The person goes so far as to cheat, all to get the applause of others.
Dependence on external approval
It would be a lie to say that a person can completely disconnect from other people’s opinions and reach a point where he is not interested in the approval of others at all. Only someone highly evolved spiritually can do that. Ordinary mortals depend, to some extent, on approval.
Who isn’t happy to win an award or recognition for what they’ve done? Even on a daily basis, everyone feels some degree of satisfaction when they post something on social media and get a “like”, or receive friend requests, or increase their number of followers.
The key to not falling prey to obsessing over others’ approval is to realize it in time. When receiving that “like” for something you said without much pretension, understand that what is important is to have expressed something you think. The approval is just an addition that happened today, but maybe tomorrow your posts will be ignored.
It is very rewarding when it is possible to enjoy what we do and be consistent with what we think, without fear or anxiety about the result. It’s not easy to get rid of the motivation that someone else’s response may imply, but it is always necessary to work not to fall into this trap. Let passion guide you, not obsession.
