Growing up, you’d always hear people around you telling you to try as many things as possible until you find something you’re really passionate about. So while you’re in the process of growing up, you’d dabble in several things to see if anything sparks a fire within, and of course there’d be that one kid you know who has already found his/her calling and you’re just there sitting in the corner telling yourself “Hey, it’s okay. You’ve still got time. Whatever.”
Fast forward to when you’re actually one of the grown ups and its time for you to make a decision, you find yourself stuck because you still have no idea what you are passionate about. Well shit. So now instead of doing something that you actually really love, you’re stuck at a 9 – 5 desk job clocking in day in and day out, questioning your whole existence thinking that this all could’ve been solved if you had known what you were really passionate about in the first place.
Well before you start spiralling down into your eternal abyss, I want you to stop and think. Are you really not passionate about something, or do you already know what you like and you’re just unaware of it or even ignoring it?
Think of it this way, when you’re up during the day, I’m pretty sure that there’s at least a few topics that you actually think about a few times and that you actually enjoy them even. Example: you love taking pictures or you love baking. “But you can’t make money out of taking pictures or baking”
Well how do you know? How are you sure of it? Have you actually tried it before?
See this is where the problem starts, perception and not trying. Perception as in ruling out the thing you like because you’re afraid that it won’t pay the bills, and you’re right to think of that because hey man, not everything that you like can actually pay the bills, and this is when priorities comes in place.
While there is some truth to that being a painter won’t bring you the same financial security as being an engineer, but then again you don’t really know that 100% for sure until you actually try it.
So what if you’ve tried and failed at it? Well I’m going to ask you if you’ve tried it again, and again? So maybe you’ve tried it for a bunch of times and it doesn’t work out. Well, you know what? It’s okay then because even though the job that you have isn’t exactly what you love doing, but hey at least it pays the bills. Just think of it this way, you love surfing, but you know you’re not cut out for the competitive side of it after trying, so now you work an office job because you know in the end your love for surfing isn’t really going to pay for those bills. But that doesn’t mean that your love for surfing ends right there. So go ahead with that office job and do it, but when you’re done with work, go and unwind by doing something that you actually love, which is surfing.
To be honest, not all of us are lucky to work in something that we actually love. I’m lucky because so far I’ve been able to find a few jobs here and there to support myself thus far through writing. With that said though, 2015 has been hard for me. I went from discovering what I was good at by accident, to loathing it and becoming numb, to rediscovering my love for it. This thing I’m talking about is writing. To be honest, I never really knew I had a love for writing up until I took on this job to be one of the contributing writers for this beauty and fashion blog here in Malaysia. It happened randomly after I went for a few events and did a few write ups for some products when I discovered that I actually loved writing and that I was weirdly good at it.
The first time I was introduced to writing creatively was during my stint in the States. I was around 14 or 15 years old at the time, and it was my first ever experience studying in a school that was teaching in English after years of attending an a school using the Arabic language as its medium. I still remember the teacher who introduced me to the whole world of writing, and to this day I am forever indebted to her because without her this whole post, this website even, would have never existed if it weren’t for how she showed me how beautiful writing could be.
So I’d write from class essays to posting up my opinions on forums or anything writing related without any second thought to it. By the time I was done with high school, and I was in college I began to realize how writing wasn’t something everyone enjoyed particularly. It was then when I began to understand that this thing that I actually enjoyed was something that was different from the rest of the crowd.
With that said, that belief came with doubts that I could do anything useful with it until I stumbled across that job listing that I mentioned above. Since then, I’ve worked for several publications and most importantly, I was paid for something that I actually liked doing.
Which brings me to this point; I didn’t know what I was passionate about until I tried several things that was along the lines of something that I was into already. So while you’re not sure of what you’re really passionate about, you need to stop and think of the things that are actually there in front of you because like I said, sometimes the thing that you overlook the most is the thing that you’re looking for.
Image credit: Giphy
