Passion vs Lust

Being a Passionate Person. Complainers. Gratitude + Faith. The Roots of Passion. Being an "Intense" Person. Lust. & More.

A few days ago, I posted two tweets on X:

“A sign of good health is doing everything passionately”

“A passionate person is a healthy person. It means you’re alive inside. Some people are nonchalant, lukewarm, or do things halfway because they’re living, but they’re not fully alive. When your mind, heart, and spirit are in the right place, passion infuses your entire existence”

One thing I’ve been noticing lately is how it seems like the world is full of people moving through life “half-awake”. Living their little lives but not really alive. And I believe it’s because they lack passion.

Maybe they have dreams, but I don’t see most people pursuing them. It’s like when people expect to become rich one day by winning the lottery without even playing. The dreams and desires seem to be there—I want to believe everyone wishes for more, deep down—but the holy passion that actually moves them to do, be, and have better isn’t there. The intensity found in passion that is needed to actually appreciate life, and live, not just susrvive—no matter how imperfect your life or current circumstances are— isn’t present in most people’s lives.

Maybe it’s nostalgia, but when I look back, there’s this sense that people lived with more intensity, more love, more passion, more hope, more risk, and even with more creativity. They looked physically healthier as well, and they glowed. They burned brighter. Now, I’m not sure if it’s all because of social media (although there might be other factors that influence it), but our phones definitely explain a lot why this shift has happened.

If you think about it, people scroll all day, and spend most of their time consuming, comparing, and performing. Consuming foods that might not be healthy for them, spending money on things they don’t need, consuming content that isn’t healthy or nourishing for the mind, comparing themselves, their bodies, their lives, their jobs, their families to other’s, performing who they are, faking their interests to attract others, trying to “fit in” into certain niches (online or offline), performing their masculinity or femininity (not in all cases), and the list goes on and on and on.

Everything seems to be surface-level and rushed (for the most part), and that is what’s making people lukewarm, nonchalant, and passionless. They want the flame without burning the wood, just staring at their neighbors firepit, hoping to feel some of that warmth for free without actually taking the action to make their own fire.

If you want to achieve great things in life, really great things, passion is required. Talent will take you far, discipline matters, but without passion, none of that sustains it. Passion is what gets you up in the morning with energy and hope. Like when you go to sleep excited because you can’t wait to have your favorite breakfast in the morning. Passion is what keeps you pushing through.

But the sad part is, most people aren’t operating from that place. Most look like zombies almost.

Gratitude plays a big role here too, in my opinion. Because if all you do is complain all day about your life or focus mostly on what you lack instead of being grateful for what you do have, then it’s hard to feel that passion for life, that thirst and primal hunger to experience ecstasy in this realm even when doing the smallest, most mundane things.

This is something I can say makes life so sweet for me, when I can find beauty even in moments like sipping my coffee in the morning or when I have a random crying session. I romanticize everything and I am grateful even for the sadness or pain we sometimes have to experience, because it reminds me I’m fully alive and fully human, and only when we can learn to honor our humanness and everything it involves, we can savor the exquisiteness of our perfectly imperfect lives and God’s so perfect and astonishing Creation.

A lot of people complain more than they live, and complaining is to passion what weeds are to the earth. It doesn’t let the healthy grass or wildflowers grow. When your energy is sprouting from soil made of hopelessness, darkness, negativity, or constant self-criticism and judgment toward others, you’re not living with that beautiful, sacred fire that allows the good flowers to bloom.

Complaining often puts you in victim mode (even if it’s subconsciously and indirectly), and victims aren’t passionate people. A self-proclaimed “victim” is always busy pointing fingers, staying stuck in what’s wrong instead of focusing on what is right, and could be made right. That mindset only makes them feel like there’s no escape from their problems. It makes them believe that life is something we have to endure, that we’re here to “suffer”, that the world is a cruel place, that they’re not “lucky”, that God has “abandoned” them, or that true love only exists in rom-coms and Jane Eyre novels.

Passion requires action and faith. Complaining destroys both. It makes these people live in a self-imposed jail where they’ll never experience true freedom, because they become a slave to their own toxic, self-limiting thought patterns.

And I think most people complain nowadays because, let’s be honest, it’s easier than being passionate. Not more rewarding, but more unchallenging.

Complaining doesn’t ask you to take any action, risks, or responsibility. Those who constantly complain very rarely take accountability or stop to look at themselves in the mirror and truly face themselves. It allows people to vent their frustration without actually doing anything about it. Many don’t feel like they have much control over their lives, but complaining gives them the illusion of control. It’s easier to point out what’s wrong than to fix it, whether the “problem” is a situation in their lives or themselves. Unfortunately, it becomes a habit. A very unhealthy one. Once people get used to seeing the negative first, it becomes their default lens, their default defeated perspective. Sadly, they don’t even realize how much it enslaves them and robs them of their vital life force.

If you’ve ever been around a complainer, you know how infectious that energy is. It corrodes everything it touches. It’s not contagious in a way that makes you want to mirror them or see life through their same pessimistic eyes, but in the sense that their energy lowers yours. Even if you’re grounded, it’s almost impossible not to feel it. It’s heavy. Complainers are not the kind of people we love being around.

This is why I love people who are passionate. Their presence alone will make you feel alive because they very rarely complain. They see beauty in the little things. They do everything with intensity and love. Their energy is so powerful that it feels almost contaminating. They make you smile more often, they make you dream bigger, they remind you that the sky isn’t even the limit, they make you want to fall in love with life and “touch more grass”, they make you literally want to fall in love with another soul, and they remind you that even when things don’t go as expected, everything happens for a reason—and the reason is always to protect you from what’s not meant for you.

Passionate people aren’t “delusionally positive” or unrealistic. They’re spiritually grounded and very realistic (and practical), but they also know it’s a waste of time to put their attention and energy into things, situations, or people that don’t add magic or euphoria to their lives.

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Passion & Its Roots

Passion can’t exist on its own, it comes from somewhere. And that place is love. Passion is the extension and overflow of love. Real passion always has its roots in the heart.

When you like or love something or someone, you naturally show that you care—unless you’re in the ealry stages and you’re trying to play some “childhish” games by purposely acting nonchalant to see if that can help you make the other person be more interested in you (baby, this dating advice doesn’t work).

You’re invested, you pour yourself out, you put most of your energy, time and attention into it. That’s where passion is born. That’s why people who live passionately are usually people who also love deeply and wear their heart on their sleeve. They love God, they love nature and the world that surrounds them, they love themselves, they love life, they love their calling, they love their hobbies, they love others, they love love.

But without love, passion can turn into obsession, ego, or lust.

Even in relationships, the difference is pretty obvious. Lust fades away quickly once that energy is used (especially sexually), because it’s not rooted in love. But passion that comes from love is the kind of passion that can keep burning and last lifetimes. Passion is not about desire only (there’s nothing wrong with desire as long as it comes from a healthy place), it’s about devotion. It’s seeing the person in front of you and loving them so deeply that your passion for them keeps igniting with time instead of fading away. Passion is what allows romantic love to feel like you’re constantly in the honeymoon phase and living in a fairytale, even when life doesn’t “look” as exciting. Every day can feel heavenly and adventurous with them—or even with yourself if you’re in the single phase—if you’re operating from the right energy.

This can be applied to life itself too. If you’re not in love with your life, even in its messy seasons, you won’t have the passion to keep moving, healing, and creating something better for yourself. A deep love for life is what sustains the passion through the ups and downs. You don’t wake up one day and say, “I think I’m going to be passionate today”. That’s not how it works. Passion is like a beautiful Louisiana bayou weeping willow tree, and love is the root that makes it grow and become the masterpiece that it is. When your life is grounded in love for all Creation (which obviously includes yourself, my love), passion flows out of you like an ancient Native American river filled with life and crystaline waters that reflect the divinity of life and your own existence.

I also love, adore, and almost deify people that are intense. Intense doesn’t mean chaotic, it means passionate. It’s people who pour all their heart and energy into the things they love. It’s people who see beauty everywhere. It’s people who have a mission and are raw and authentic. That is attractive.

The reason I love “intense people” is because intensity is passion at its purest. It’s aliveness, it’s knowing your God-given worth and refusing to live halfway. And in a world full of complainers, that is rare and highly magnetic. It’s the kind of energy that makes you want to get to know someone better and be part of their world.

It’s strange and ironic, because the word intense is often used with a negative connotation, especially in relationships. People think it means being “too much”, as if that was an insult. They see someone caring deeply, living devotionally, or loving hard and intensely as a “flaw”. But in reality, intensity is just another word for passion, and like I said, passion is always rooted in love, which makes intensity an extremely healthy quality.