All of the AI Principles are evident in her story.  She opens with examples of the Constructionist Principle: how words create worlds and the role we all play in co-creating our realities and defining each other.

She advocates the need to honor the wholeness, possibility and potency of ourselves and each other.  She asks us to open ourselves up to and embrace our adversities, rather than sweep them under the carpet.

She reminds us from her own story that we live up OR down to others’ image of us, and how positive imagery leads to positive outcomes.  She is such an example of nurturing the human spirit, keeping hope, seeing the beauty, valuing curiosity … and so much more.

I highly recommend this video.

Aimee Mullen’s TED Talk on “The Opportunity of Adversity“.

In the city of Kolkata, an anti-noise campaign has started and Sunday has been declared a no honking day.  To quote the police commissioner of Kolkata, Guatam Mohan Chakrabarti, “...city police are embarking on a major campaign against noise pollution in general and bursting of high decibel firecrackers in particular.”

“After some progress in the campaign, we want to observe Sundays as no honking days. Motorists in the city often honk without reason.  Most of the time this is a manifestation of their impatience.  Sundays being no hurry days, drivers can desist from honking.  This would substantially reduce noise levels in the city.  Over time, the city has got noisier and at some busy crossings, it is completely maddening.”

What is also relevant in networked India is that this campaign has begun on a virtual plane on the blog kolkatacops.com.  The Police Commissioner continues, “enforcement alone cannot make the difference.  Only awareness can bring down the overall noise levels.  Since we already have a blog, we cannot have a better vehicle for such a campaign.

“We are inviting environmentalists and doctors to air their views on the ill effects of high-decibel fireworks on health and the environment.”  In addition, he wants to invite historians “to tell how and when the noise level increased to such a level”.  Furthermore, “sociologists should speak  on what social implications this sudden spurt of noise pollution may have on our social life.  We would like to have the views of economists if they can quantify the environmental damage and the financial loss incurred by this noise spurt.”

The Police Commissioner has not forgotten the common person.  He does not want the blog to be “an airtight zone for expression on one-way views.”  He is hoping for a range of views from regular citizens as well.  “We expect that eventually science, logic and enormous goodwill would prevail.”

Among already eminent citizens who have blogged, here are two comments:
“It is surely a good move, but I doubt if drivers will follow it.  In civilized countries, drivers do not honk unnecessarily, but here this is a custom.  Drivers should be trained properly.” Dr. Dulal Bose, Ent specialist and former sheriff of Kolkata.

“It has become a habit here to blow the horn unnecessarily.  If drivers stop doing this, noise pollution levels will come done.  For this, we need a mass awareness campaign and this is a good initiative to start with.” Devang Gandhi, cricketer.

Enthusiasm and passion can be transferred virtually, so here’s to the Kolkata cops.

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The environment – nature in this case – provided feedback which supported my experience in the following ways: the embrace of the gentle sea breeze blowing my hair and cooling my skin; the sound of the waves roaring up onto the sand, and being sucked back again, and the noises and sights of the gulls squawking and swooping, and the tiny piping plovers scurrying a constant few feet ahead of me.  This tactile, auditory and visual feedback from nature contributed significantly to my feelings of well-being and my most satisfying performance. I felt supported by the environment.  Furthermore,  I overheard one woman say to another as I passed them, “this is so great.”  I smiled.  A couple of days later, when walking, a man wearing only bathing trunks walked toward me with arms outstretched with a huge grin on his face.  “This is beautiful.  This is the first time I have ever walked to the most north part of Sandy Hook.  It is just so beautiful.”  I congratulated him,  laughing with him as he exuberantly needed to share his feelings of elation and achievement.

Psychologically, I felt light and powerful, and in tune with nature all around.  I felt positive and supported by the environment.   I drew deep breaths to take it all in appreciatively.  I felt the blood pumping in my heart as my pulse intensified with my effort.  My breath quickened and the heat was rising in my body in proportion to the energy I was expending.   I felt fortunate to be in such a place at that moment with an increased sense of well-being just as the other people had expressed.

Then there were the electronic devices that provided me feedback.  I was wearing a heart rate monitor strap around my chest and a watch on my wrist.  I knew exactly my heart rate as I walked, my “lap” time, and the calories I was consuming.  The feedback from these tools helped me track my performance.  Not only was the HR monitor providing me valuable feedback,  I also had my iPhone with an app called MotionX-GPS, in my short’s pocket.   This app tracked my walk. I could see where I was going on the map, the GPS co-0rdinates, my pace, if I chose to look at it in the moment.  My pace was 3.9 miles per hour and if I wanted to get to 4.00 mph, I knew what I had to do!  At the same time, I was listening to music, that inspired me and helped me find a rhythm that worked with my pace.  I also took this photograph with my iPhone.

Would I have enjoyed my walk without my feedback tools – the environment, my psyche and electronic devices.  Yes, and I think the feedback these tools provided me in the moment enhanced my enjoyment and my performance.   Moreover, I can now make choices about my next walks – the conditions of the environment and how they impact my psyche, and the data that I later downloaded from my heart rate monitor and iPhone app, MotionX-GPS to my computer.

Being conscious of my performance helps because it’s in my nature to want feedback – to know how I am doing , how I am serving myself and others, how I am in nature, and in the world at large.   It helps my performance to know how I relate to the context itself and to others.  I learn more about what supports me;  what I value;  how I can evaluate and improve and take corrective action.   I can make choices about the feedback.  It is all information and I can chose to ignore it or use it as a benchmark for something different.

It seems to me that our participation in, and contribution to this world is hugely dependent on the quality of feedback we get from a variety of sources.  We don’t live in isolation; there are feedback loops that that continually inform us.  How much attention we pay to all the feedback that is available to us and what we do with it, is our choice.

That there is good passion and bad passion is not new.  But appreciating the psychological impacts of good and bad passion is of interest. Of even greater interest is how to cultivate more good passion and why does that matter?

Robert J. Vallerand, Professor of Psychology at Universite du Quebec a Montreal defines passion “as a strong inclination toward an activity that people like, find important, and in which they invest time and energy.”

Vallerand’s model posits the existence of two types of passion – harmonious passion and obsessive passion – each associated with different outcomes and experiences.

1. “Harmonious passion originates from an autonomous internalisation of the activity in the individual and leads people to choose to engage in the activity that they love. It is expected to lead mainly to more adaptive outcomes”, such as improved psychological well-being, health, relationships and performance. “An autonomous internalisation is driven by one’s own chosing;  it’s important to pursue the activity without any contingencies attached to it.  Motivation is intrinsic; it satisfies the needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness.” These activities come to be so self-defining that they represent “who you are” in the world.  The harmoniously passionate person has a natural, authentic congruency.  Think of some people you know personally or  well-known athletes, artists, professionals and business people, who exhibit harmonious passion.
2. “Obsessive passion originates from a controlled internalisation in the individual’s identity and leads people to experience an uncontrollable urge to engage in the activity. It is hypothesised to predict less adaptive outcomes”, which could be conflict with self, others, competing activities, thus leading to possible disatisfaction, stress and burnout. “Obsessive passion may be displayed as a rigid persistence toward the activity”, as with such passion, one cannot NOT engage in the acivity. This happens because “ego-invested rather than integrative self processes are at play with obsessive passion leading the person to eventually becoming dependent on the activity. While such persistence may lead to some benefits (e.g., improved performance at the activity), it may also come at a cost for the individual, potentially leading to less than optimal functioning within the confines of the passionate activity because of the lack of flexibility that it entails.”

What role does competition play in the cultivation of obsessive passion?

There are too many examples of the negative consequences of obsessive passion spanning the history of our human species and in all areas of human endeavor – from politics, to business, to sports.  If you think about athletes (and others) who feel the need to take performance enhancing drugs, you’d have to ask which type of passion is internalized in them – autonomous or controlled?  And if not them, their managers, coaches or promoters?  What role does competition play in the cultivation of obsessive passion?  How does such obsessive passion play out in our personal well-being, long term success, health, relationships and performance?

How to cultivate harmonious passion and why does it matter?

• Love what you do, persist and practice. People who love what they do generally use a blend of their talents, gifts, strengths with a big shot of harmonious passion that keeps them doing what they love to do – even against all odds.  They get better at it, through persistence and practice and society benefits.   Think of the legacies left by painters and musicians, writers and scientists.  Van Gogh, Beethoven, Shakespeare and Marie Curie come to mind.  By the way there are no age, race, gender, culture barriers to loving what you do.   How many septuagenarian rock stars, or seven year old poets are out there?

• Take responsiblity to make it happen. If it’s you, then recognize which activities play to your talents and strengths and matter very deeply to you, not because something or somebody outside you tells you to, but because the activity or actitivies make you feel alive: they are instrinsic to your identity.   Take responsibility to cultivate and nurture them.  If you are a parent or boss, notice which activities enliven your child or staff member when they are at one with the activity.  Encourage their deliberate practice.

• Notice the impact your good (harmonious) passion generates in relation to:  your own well-being – your sense of vitality, aliveness and purpose in the world; your relationship with others – what and how you relate to others;  your physical health and energy levels;  your performance and outputs – the quality and quantity and your satisfaction levels.

When you pursue your passion, is it harmoniously integrated, creating a kind of peace within?  And how does that matter?  Your comments are welcome.

So when life happens, it can mean we are thrown off life’s course as we have designed it.   Barriers and challenges get in the way of what we dreamed our life to be.  The vision we held becomes blurred, cloudy or even blacks out.  It can happen when we get very sick, lose family members, our jobs, our homes and businesses.  There are so many stories out there in our current climate that seem to suggest life doesn’t always go according to plan.

Right in your face steps the aliveness of life – with its fullest passion urging you to take personal responsibility for what you really care about.   History shows us repeatedly that  human resiliency and adaptability triumphs.  In times such as these, we reconnect to our universal human values and feel that which makes us alive.

So whether you are protesting to have your vote counted in Iran, for medical reform in the US,  for a fair living wage in developing countries , or in support of your own personal challenges whereever you are,  let passion be your power!