Hi friends! (Exclamation points make everything look super cheery. It’s disgusting.)
This week has been a little bit of a crazy time, no different from any other weeks. I’ve been battling with the ever expected ‘”DID I SCREW UP BY CHOOSING THE WRONG MAJOR” crisis-at-midnight’ since Wednesday, listening to nothing but two musicals by the genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda. He’s the guy that wrote Hamilton & In The Heights & 21 Chump Street. (You should listen to all of them.) There’s probably a post about Hamilton coming soon.
I’m a law major. I don’t know if I want to become a lawyer, or if I want to become a law lecturer, or if I want to be Harvey Specter. Or Jessica Pearson. (Definitely Jessica Pearson. She’s the only one whose name has been on the door from the beginning.) Enough Suits talk – I’ve been having a big think about passion & purpose, whether the two actually exist, or whether they should have as much emphasis placed on them as they do.
This Humans of New York post & comment has fueled a lot of my internal monologue:
Everyone talks about their “passion” as if it’s some pre-determined thing that’s somewhere out there waiting for you. Like a soulmate, if you believe that there is literally someone in the world you were “meant” to be with.
I don’t believe there are careers or hobbies you were meant to have any more than there are people you were “destined” to be with. I’ve been in enough relationships to understand that, yes, you can fit really well with someone, that fate can appear to have aligned perfectly for your getting together, but the success of the relationship is still dependent on your own decisions and how hard you’re willing to work for it.
The same is true about your “passion”. I study neuroscience; I want to go into research. I could have just as easily (if not more easily) become a writer, simply because I absolutely love writing. In college, I often enjoyed my writing classes more than my science classes. In fact, if money wasn’t an issue, I might have chosen to become a writer instead.
Does that mean I’m not following my passion by choosing a career in science over writing? No. Because I could never give up science. I could never give up my curiosity and desire to learn about the world, and the opportunity to actually be on the forefront of that discovery.
Your passion is what you put your energy into. It’s what you decide, consciously or not (but sometimes it has to be consciously!), to care about, to strive towards, to give your life to. It is a reflection of you and not of whatever the actual subject of your interest is. It can change.
People forget that “passion” doesn’t describe the object of your devotion; it describes the energy and emotion you invest in that object. People who jump from career to career, actively searching for something they can enjoy doing, can very well be exhibiting just as much passion as someone who’s stayed in the same career all their lives and loved every day of it.
Huh. Isn’t that something? I have crazy passion for theatre. Like, if you had to ask me what my ideal career would be, I’d probably have to give you the hodge podge that is “a lawyer librettist performer teacher”. Quite something, right?
Passion is specific. (Here’s a very smooth segue to pageants.) My friend, Errin, is probably one of the most crazy determined people I know. I struggled through math in grade 10 with her, planned THE BEST prom the school had seen with her in 11th, and now have the pleasure of calling her my friend & fellow law student. Errin has been doing pageants for a while, and apart from the fact that she is crazy good at them, she defies stereotypes while she kicks ass.
She’s just won Miss Wits (my university’s internal pageant), and is now competing for the title of Miss Varsity Shield. If you’d be keen to drop her a vote, you can click right here. The public vote counts 33%, and she deserves it. Love you, gal.
Things have been crazy. I work 12 hours a week, and I’m trying to be really good at school. I’m trying to save enough to buy my phone back (it got stolen here)& replace my laptop. Gertrude is having a rough year, like me. At least one of the banks I’m battling with got back to me today.
Here’s to an easier weekend.
Love & light,
shalom xo
Okay, Shalom. 