Find Your Passion
Don’t settle for mediocrity, seek clarity when you are lost.
There is a belief that many of us have probably heard: “Passions are not found but developed over time. That instead of pursuing what you are passionate about, you should look at what you are good at, and lock in on it. If you do so, you are more likely to be passionate about it.” I full-heartedly disagree with that.
Passion is a strong desire, soul-fulfilling embracement of activities, careers, people, hobbies, movements, and relationships, that consumes every part of you. It is an overwhelming feeling of light, love, and consistent content. It can provide a major uplift to your life and can create a high, euphoric whimsical feeling when immersed in it. Passion is connected to growth, with growth consists of change, and change is inevitable. Many panic when change occurs, but in all actuality, it needs to be embraced. Your passions are allowed to change as you go through different chapters of your life. It’s completely normal for them to be temporary instead of long-lasting. At the end of the day, I feel like passion is just like love, to some extent. Because without proper balance, it can be your strength or weakness, innovation or your sacrifice, and it can be either destroyed or destroy you.
Finding your passion can be an automatic discovery during your youth. For others, it’s discovered in the awkward adolescence stage in high school. But for many, it’s during those college years where you are forced to leave the nest and immediately given the ability to truly experience the world. It’s the period where you explore and try new things you haven’t been exposed to prior. To find your passion, you might have to take risks and go out of your comfort zone. You can have multiple passions and be involved with all of them if you want to. Society makes you feel like you have to choose or limit yourself, in order to succeed. To focus on one thing and master it isn’t the only way of accomplishing success. The world IS your oyster, you CAN have your cake and eat it too, NOTHING is wrong with being a jack of all trades.
Passion encompasses determination and conviction that some people haven’t or may never choose to experience in this lifetime. Unfortunately, the sad common theme that tends to reoccur in many people’s stories is that even after one discovers their passion, they push it aside or fully ignore it. Never to be followed through or thought about again until those retirement years. And even then you’ll feel as if it’s too late. That’s the catch, it is never too late.
While writing this blog, a question came to mind, “what is the difference between love and passion?” I asked some friends and family members this question and no one was able to provide a clear, concrete answer. This question opened up an amazing dialogue that led to many other questions about how we define certain things and what we value individually. I came to realize that it naturally comes down to perspective and how each person defines love, passion, purpose, and desire. And that when you combine these things you get your unique version of success.
