Finding Your Passion

High school and college are very defining points in your life. I say this not because it's incredibly cliche and overstated, but because I've come to realize this myself. They are times when you form lasting friendships (and learn what friendship really is, for that matter), try new things, and they're the last times of your life that you can enjoy the freedom of being a kid. Something that is overlooked by many in this time period is finding your passion; the one thing that you, independent of others, enjoy doing more than anything else. I cannot stress enough the importance of this, I can only express how it has affected my life greatly.

Computers have always been apart of my life. My dad having a masters degree in technology, we always had the latest Macintosh computer in our house and I was taught the basics at a young age. However, I never took it much further than Neopets and MSN Messenger until I purchased my first computer, an Apple iMac, at age 16. I bought it both to escape from the ancient Dell desktop the family then possessed and to have the ability to edit and produce video, another hobby I was forming at the time. I never expected myself to become a computer geek, but after a short time of owning the computer I found myself learning more and more every day about its inner-workings: software, hardware, and everything in between.

By the second half of my Junior year, I found myself pricing parts to build my own computer from scratch. There had never been something in my life before that I felt such an eagerness and excitement to learn more about, and apply that knowledge in every way possible. I realized that I had officially been indoctrinated into the world of geekery, and I was okay with that. My best friends had absolutely no interest computers, it was something that I did purely for myself, and it turned into what I'm sure will be a life-long hobby of mine.

Finding your passion is so incredibly important at a young age, for many reasons. Not everybody (me included) falls in love with sports. They are a great thing if you enjoy playing them, but what's left for the rest of us who aren't the most athletic? For most, its left to a lot of uneventful hanging out with friends, going to parties, wasting time on Facebook, etc. The problem with these activities is that there's nothing to gain from them. Most commonly, partying is the choice among bored high school and college students, and its unfortunate. I've seen too many good people fall into the world of alcohol and drugs as a means of enjoying the world, and it leads to a lack of interest in everything else. They form a dependence on a substance to have fun and it ruins the joys of everyday life for them.

A passion is something that's always there for you; on those days after class with no homework, on those Friday nights when nothing is going on, and those Saturdays when your friends aren't around to hang out. It's something you can do by yourself and truly enjoy. Your friends, as important as they are to have, won't always be there. Friends grow up and go on to do different things and go different places than you. Many people in high school depend on large groups of friends for entertainment and enjoyment, only to find themselves a few years down the road in a new place, surrounded by new people, and completely out of their comfort zone. Some depend on this so much that they don't move on. They stay in the same town, going to the same parties, hanging out with the same people day after day without making any real progress as a person. Your passion goes with you wherever you go.

If you find yourself doing the same old thing every day, go out and try something new! Pick up a new hobby, take a class that interests you, join a new club; do something, and do it for yourself. This doesn't just apply to high school and college students, its something everybody should do. Finding your passion is something that will benefit you for the rest of your life and help you grow as a person in ways that nothing else could. I know this only because I've found more than one that have gotten me through some rough times and truly made my life more enjoyable to live.