Throughout my career, I have had the great fortune - at various times - of being mentored by self-made men and women. A casual reading of any success story usually reveals a protagonist to be a heroic character full of passion.
I think most of us, at some time or another, have felt an overhwelming feelings of desire to achieve personal excellence along a particular path; whether that be something as abstract as "entrepreneurship" or some definite goal like "published author" or "professional game developer."
But is passion really necessary for any measure of success?
I often find that consistent self-discipline is far more useful to success than any amount of passion. A long view of history means we should take the perspective that we take the immortal perspective of having omnipotence and eternity at our disposal while being acutely aware that time is a finite resource.
We can always find new lovers, earn more money, have new adventures, play more games, and drink more beer. However, every passing day rapidly depletes our store of Time which we find rapidly appreciates in combinatorial explosions of value as supplies accelerate towards oblivion in lock-step with our mortality.
If popular notions of reincarnation are somehow objectively true, then there is no reason to delay doing whatever needs to be done - today! - to come closer the far-end of the bell curve of human potential so that we can reap the rewards of our creative success for lifetimes to come (even if that success comes posthumously!).
If popular notions of reincarnation are nothing more than confortable lies we tell ourselves to soothe the knowledge that every breath hurls us closer to the grave, there is no reason to avoid doing whatever needs to be done - right now! - to traverse the abyss of time, pregnant with habitually discipline, that separates the average from the legendary.