FINDING WHAT EMPOWERS YOU: WHAT PASSION LOOKS LIKE

Deciding what we what to do for the rest of our working-lives can be incredibly difficult for two major reasons: either two many interests or not enough. Another possibility would be channels that have yet to be fully exhausted. And with that in mind, there could always be professions that encourage all types of someone's interests, all wrapped in one big and shiny bow.

Taking the example of something very niche and specific, like all individual's personal interests, I have a friend with three plates full of hobbies; that include playing video games, flying and building drones, editing drone footage for videos, and then finally painting monsters. My Venn Diagram-like suggestion to this is to create artworks that reflect his video game and drone passion, seeing how art was the first passion in his life. And oftentimes, this type of creative problem-solving is how the strangest of jobs becomes a reality. For instance, people do make a living off selling fan art, niche art, freelancing designs for video game writers, the list could go on. It is worth mentioning that delving into different schools can trigger memories of past passions or invigorate new ones, and that is really why college students are required to.

When asking yourself the greatest question, "what is my passion in life?" I believe this to be the ultimate question, the 42 answer, the purpose to living is what we are passionate about. In the most obvious examples, the institutions of medicine, education, and many others — helping others is one's passion and larger purpose. Realistically, the vast majority of vocations fall into this category. So for most of us, the real question is, "how do I want to help people?" And in finding the 'how' to this, finding one's "dream job" could be made much simpler.

What Does Passion Look Like?

Imagine you are an individual who works full-time in a mundane, everyday occupation; a rinse-repeat schedule sprinkled with weekends. For the largest portion of the population, imagining this probably isn't necessary and is simply a reality. When looking for the "passion" in this scenario, we must single out the people who carve into their time to do what makes them happy — what feeds them the most healthy amounts of dopamine.

Take, for example, a woman who works 9-5 as a bank teller, let us name her Amanda. Now, when Amanda gets home from work she does not melt into her couch, jammies, and tv shows. Instead, Amanda makes a quick dinner to take to her workspace, where she spends the rest of her night working on her projects and social media branding. The "projects" in this instance could be any ol' fill-in-the-blank answer; to name a few, painting, filming or editing, writing, designing, horticulture, anything in the world that allows her to forget the stresses of everyday life. The activities, hobbies, or productive behaviours that take us from a mundane world/mood to a focused, wirey-eyed computer of prolific enjoyment. Again, this is that healthy dopamine that makes us want to go-go-go during and want to get-right-back-to-it while we are not doing it.

An easy example to take from childhood would be the kids in school that just can't stop drawing or reading, or a more modern example would be video games but that is an entirely different conversation. This is the kind of kid who is non-stop practicing a talent that will prove to be useful in their future, becoming an artist or not. The act of practicing is crucial when it comes to hobbies and passions because if you only go to draw every once in a while then truthfully it will not be as good as someone who has practiced more, that's just a fact. But the silver lining of this is that when one has passion for something, practice won't be all that cumbersome or boring because it is what that person wants to be doing.

Finding Time

Those who say, "I can't just 'make time for it,'" are not the type of people I'm talking about. While it is true that we cannot create or manufacture time (yet), it is more of an expression that encouraged people use to find where the time already exists. My suggestion to this potential issue would be to find where time is being wasted – how much do you sleep? How much do you really need? And then, how long does it take you to wake up? Or, do you do anything while you watch tv? Most importantly, when aren't you doing anything in your hands or mind at all? The overarching fact is that time exists in small pockets here and there. I generally call these times "waiting periods," which are times where I am just waiting for the next thing to happen. These are the moments we must cultivate in order to be more productive in our passions.

Many activities are more enjoyable when you have hours of time to enjoy them, but when one does not have hours they must find how to find fun/passions in small increments. Using the same artist example as before, after my friend gets out of bed he goes straight to his computer to start working on his latest piece before he has to go to work. As a student, I have work to do even when I am not at work (school) but I still try my darndest to find the small ounces of time that I can devote to my passions. As I have found, it is even possible to cultivate yourself on the road, like by listening to audiobooks or pdf talk-to-text apps; and then there is the more unhealthy route of depriving sleep or eating all meals whilst working – sometimes sacrifice is worth it but of course, is not advised for an all-day-everyday behaviour.

Empowerment in Passions

The reason why most people feel empowered when they are practicing hobbies is because of how it allows them to expose their inner creativity, their inner person/persona, their inner thoughts and feelings towards things. And when we do this, the act of putting a part of our selves into the world, we share it with others and they encourage us to create more – just another point of dopamine release that makes us want to delve into our passions even more. When we take a piece of soul, rip it out and put it down on a sheet of paper (of the life thereof), all we want from the outside world is praise and the knowledge that our inner self is worth sharing. And this is why we practice and practice, to create the most perfect representation of ourselves to share with the world.