Dialogue: Give in to passion and let yourself go

By ROANNE PARKER

It is fashionable to be passionate. Passion is our raison d'etre. From organic farming to wallpaper, if you're not passionate about it, go home and leave it to the winners who are.

Follow your passion, do what you love. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing with passion.

There is a major problem with this new truth, however: most poor old Kiwis are flightless and mousy, not passionate.

Passion means getting a bit carried away, and that is simply not the done thing. No unnecessary displays of enthusiasm around here, thank you very much, lest the neighbours see.

It is all very well to live like there is no tomorrow, but you and I both know you might end up looking a bit silly.

And besides, all that rubbish about tomorrow never coming isn't going to fool us because we know jolly well that tomorrow we need to make school lunches, clean soccer boots, construct two cowgirl outfits with one piece of cardboard and a set of pirate accessories, argue about breakfast cereal, put out the recycling, find 10 clean socks in five matching colours, shower and make up for work - and that's all before 7.30 am.

I love to feel full of passion, my heart bursting with pleasure, but life does seem to try hard to suck it all out of me.

To feel passionate about something you need to have the luxury of wallowing in it. Passion is all-consuming, and by definition you can't feel a little bit passionate about a thing and schedule it between 9.15 and 9.30 pm each day.

But if that's all the time you have to even think about wallowing, what to do, what to do? You have only one life. Just do it.

Well, we aren't brought up to think that way in these parts. Like all the Kiwi girls I know, I was trained from a young age to put my shoulders back, pronounce my eithers and neithers correctly and think of others first.

But passion is a selfish emotion. Getting carried away doing something just because you really want to isn't something that women like me are wildly successful at.

We are good at giving way to the needs of others. I don't necessarily think that it is weak to be yielding (she says, a mite defensively), but it can certainly hamper exploring and pursuing your own dreams.

Actually, it's not so much about yielding, more a sort of acquiescence. Again and again we think, "This is more important for him/them than it is for me," and let our own wants slide.

In a book about happy marriages, I read this technique to reach compromise. Rate how much you care about something out of 10, then compare numbers. So he wants to climb a mountain and she wants him to visit her mother. She gives her need for him to visit the old dragon an 8/10, while he only needs to climb the mountain 6/10. She wins.

Yeah right. Let's give men some credit. Like all types of domesticated animals, even old men can learn new tricks when it suits, and I have no doubt they would soon be shouting "10" at the end of every sentence to ensure their wants always get to drive the victory lap.

Men are better at announcing their needs to all and sundry. In fact that is an understatement: it's more like men can do it, and women completely suck at it.

Selfless acts are frequently far outside the realms of man/boy comprehension because they cannot understand the point of missing out on what you want.

We should take note of the good sense in that, but instead we bite our tongues, then we sulk for hours, finally build up to a big tantrum, and he asks, shocked and bewildered, if you really wanted to do it, why didn't you just say so?

And, sweet thing, he means it. Of course, we have no sensible answer to give, because we don't even know.

If you want to hop aboard the passion wagon, you not only need to learn to hear what your heart desires, you have to say it out loud. You will probably need to shout "10" at the end of your sentences.

And you will need to relax about the funny looks you get, because to feel passion you just have no choice but to let yourself get carried away.