Passion is not a crime

"Passion is braving 35 degree heat to do what you love." Duke

Yesterday, I had my second game with the Discovery team.

Lest you think that this posting is about soccer again, let me assure you that it is not, so stick around.

When the match kicked off at three plus yesterday, the thermometer in a friend's car read 35 degrees. It was hot, red hot, white hot, hot. It was so hot that you could see water evaporating, heat waves emanating from the ground, the exposed skin on your body drying up and the grass wilting. It was HOT. Halfway through the first half, my team (mostly made up of guys older than me) was walking around like zombies who had been rejected by the Zombie Association. They were on the pitch physically but they were reduced to walking pace or even stationary mode.

As a goalkeeper, you know it's going to be a bad day when your defenders can only look at you hopefully whenever the attackers charged towards the goal. Three-quarters through the match, I began hallucinating and I began pacing up and down, talking to myself to keep myself rooted in reality. It was HOT.

What's the point, you may ask?

Well, besides the fact that it was HOT, I want to highlight the one thing that kept 26 lobster-red, heavy-breathing, deep-panting men (we had rolling substitutions, which meant that someone would be substituted every five minutes) on the field on an unbearably hot day. That thing is passion.

All of us were passionate about the game and we surely showed it yesterday. That's the power of passion I guess - it is more than pain, difficulties, obstacles and hardships. It keeps one going despite the odds; against all odds, in fact. It's what kept Sir Edmund Hillary on Mount Everest when others gave up. It's what has pushed Paolo Maldini to stay on the field past his 39th birthday. It's what compelled twelve lowly men to stare persecution and death to pass on the Good News to the ends of the earth. The list goes on. It's what has propelled men across the ages to push past the boundaries of impossibility and march into the fields of reality.

That's the beauty of passion, I guess. It is the unshakeable belief that something is worth doing; the undying love for a pursuit or endeavour; the forerunner of the most satisfying enjoyment that is derived from doing what one loves to do.

Passion is not a crime, although I felt that it should be after the final whistle went during my match yesterday. As I lay slumped on the ground, my legs aching, my head throbbing, my body drying up, I really questioned my own sanity. Why in the world did I put myself through that?

And then, the answer came to me, clear as day - passion.