What are you passionate about? Here’s a hint, when you’re engage in something you’re passionate about, you loose track of time. When I write, hours pass like minutes. The intensity of focus is almost a trance like state.
I’m equally passionate about art (sketching, painting, pottery, graphic design), but writing has always come easier than the rest—perhaps because I read so much or perhaps because it requires so little. Anyone with a keyboard or even a pen and paper can write. It takes practice to write well, but no special equipment. So I write, where ever I go, whatever I do.
It’s important to identify your passions. The lure of material gain is so sweet. Many students think of dollars per hour and projected job markets when considering future career choices, but rarely consider their passions. Those sizable paychecks are never big enough if you spend your days dreading the time clock.
Let’s face it, after you graduate, you will spend the majority of your waking hours at work. What will work be like for you? A frustrating interruption of your real life? Or an opportunity to flourish and grow?
I’m not saying that everyone should opt for a life as a modern bohemian. Even I have a job. I commute through traffic. I pay my bills . . . and I write. It’s a small part of my job, but there are other parts of it that I am passionate about as well, so all in all, I enjoy what I do.
During a recent conversation with one of our students, I described the peace and serenity I experience when I walk onto a college campus. She thought for a moment and replied, “I get it. I feel the same way when I walk into a dentist’s office.”
Yes, I had the same astounded reaction . . . a dentist’s office? However, this student was a member of the Dental Program so I just smiled, “then you’re studying exactly what you should be studying.”
Building on Passion
