Passion Under Control Part 1

My worship pastor in England once said to me, 'Grant, when playing the drums you need to have Passion Under Control'! This has stuck with me all through out my playing career as a drummer for over 7 years. This has not only just helped me in drumming but it life as well.
You see, I have a passion for running and when that passion got out of control it put my life in to a complete spin! I started to focus heavily on my own goals and forgot about the people who I care about the most. This caused short tempers and behaviour that would drive anyone up the wall.
Luckily I overcame that by giving up the long distance running and settling for some smaller distances like 10km (running at pace). This has been excellent for my marriage and my daily life where I am more stable and make good decisions.

Passion out of control in any area of live will cause mayhem. You can not operate in this realm long term and expect people to walk alongside you. What I have found is that most people operate and enjoy a more stable controlled environment when it comes to excitement and passion and everyday life.
People are more likely to listen to you if you are in control of your passion. Applying this principle in my own life has reap many rewards and the respect of others.

However, sometimes having passion under control is not the first thing that comes into my mind when I get excited about anything. For example at a sports event that I am organising, I can get carried away with wanting to be part of the game, reffing, running the behind the scenes and thinking about the aftermatch function that I have organised the food for. I generally have to say to myself, 'Grant, work on one thing at a time to do a great job at it'! When you spread yourself to thin you end up doing a mediocre job at all of them.
Other people may get rattled by the pace of someone whose passion is out of control.

It is not wrong that someone can do many things at once but, if you want to people to work along side you and do a  great job with you then you must allow wisdom to intervene and travel at a pace that everyone who is involved can keep up and understand what is going on.