By Kene Nzelu
What’s your passion in life? Do you have something that makes you get out of bed each morning and look forward to the day ahead of you?
Whether it’s a hobby, career or extracurricular activity, it’s important to have something in life that you enjoy. It’s our passion that can quickly turn a day that seems dull into a day full of wonder and joy. I believe that everyone has a passion and even if you have no idea what it is, you’ll find it if you do some exploring.
If you’re frustrated and confused about what your passion is, I definitely understand because I’ve gone through the same thing myself. Especially when I first entered high school, I had trouble finding activities that I really wanted to do that I could develop into my passion in life.
Though I am still trying different clubs and activities, I definitely have a better sense of what my passion is now. I enjoy writing, helping others and learning about psychology – so I do activities that are related to these things. If you want to find your passion in life, here’s my advice about how you can start:
Question Yourself
Question yourself and think about who you are as a person. Think about what you really enjoy doing, what you’re really interested in and what you would love to devote a lot of your time to.
According to The Telegraph, journalist Hunter S. Thompson says, “anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing.” I absolutely agree with this statement.
Choose a passion in life that really gets you excited. In addition, you need to make sure that you’re choosing your passion for the right reason.
For instance, if you’re choosing your passion just to impress a college, you might choose an activity as your passion that you don’t really like, but that you think colleges will like.
The thing is, you won’t be excited to do this activity, and you might even dread it. Many colleges, including the really competitive ones, encourage prospective students to do something that they enjoy.
Niche, the platform for researching U.S. schools, neighborhoods, and companies, advises high school students to “participate in extracurriculars activities that you want to participate in, then think about how you can best lead and contribute in these areas.”
It is when you do something that you truly enjoy that you’ll be able to immerse yourself and get really involved in it.
Get Inspired
There are a countless things that you can do as your passion in life. You can get ideas from the internet, books, television and more. Don’t feel like your passion has to be super specific. Your passion could totally be out of the ordinary.
In fact, you could make up your own passion in life. Then, not only would you have found your passion, but you would also be an innovator. You would’ve invented a new activity that others could take part in.
The blog Psychology Today advises people who are looking for their passion in life that remembering what they loved to do as a child “is probably the simplest way to unearth what pursuits hold the potential to light up [their] days.”
Remembering your interests as a child could help you determine what you really love to do now.
For example, if you liked playing dress-up a lot as a child, maybe now you could look into fashion designing. If you enjoyed exploring in your backyard, maybe you could look into studying earth science.
You could even use everyday things that you do now to find your passion in life. If you enjoy writing about current events, maybe you should think about exploring journalism as your passion.
If you like watching and playing sports, you might want to look into sports broadcasting. Someone who makes it their mission to fight for the rights of others could become an activist for a certain cause or maybe study law in college. The possibilities are endless.
Pursuing Your Passion
Once you find out the number one thing that you enjoy doing in life, the next step is to find out ways to pursue this passion. Figure out when and where you’ll participate in your passion.
If you’re trying to figure out where you could participate in your passion, you can start off by looking in your school for school clubs or teams that do your favorite activity. If you’re not finding a club or team that you want to join in your school, you can start your own club or team. You also have the option of taking part in an activity outside of your school. Your local library, community center, sports complex and other similar places may provide opportunities for you to pursue your favorite activity. Just do what works best for you.
Have Fun, Not Stress
It’s important that this process of looking for your passion in life doesn’t stress you out. Psychology Today says that “discovering what you love most is an adventure in itself.” Searching for your passion should be fun and enjoyable.
Don’t waste it by worrying and don’t give up if it’s taking a while for you to find your favorite activity to do because you will eventually find it and you’ll be glad you did.
So finding your passion in life begins with you. Your passion should be something that you love to do. When you find your passion you’ll be overjoyed at how much doing it can help you get through your day.
Personally, doing the things I love has served as an outlet for me. Doing these things have helped me express myself, and I am very thankful to God that I can do the things I like in my life.
I wish you all the best in the search for your passion. God bless you!
Nzelu is a junior at Xaverian H.S., Bay Ridge.