Follow Your Passion

Finding your passion can be hard. As much as I want to say that I was always told to follow my passion as a kid, that wasn't the case. I'm an artsy person so I liked singing and acting and photography and painting. When I was in high school and trying to figure out a career I would be interested in pursuing, it became hard to nail down. I thought about all of the things I was interested in, but the message I seemed to be getting was "Those career paths aren't going to make you any money. Pick something else."

I recently passed by the local seasonal garden shop and I wondered how they decided that's what they wanted to do. It got me thinking about my sister in law when she was in high school. Where she grew up, she had a chance to go to a vocational school for her junior and senior year. When she thought about what she would pursue there, she contemplated being a gardener. I remember so clearly that her family, much like my own, steered her away from that passion questioning what she would do with that kind of degree. In the end, she followed her passion in baking and she became a chef. I am very proud of her decision to be a chef as she seems to really love it.

This all leads to the question of how does one find and actually pursue their passion? I still haven't really found that one thing that I love. I still love writing and I love painting and I love singing, and I like taking pictures. Still I don't see a career in any of those things for me. (I still love my job as the Office Manager at Riverside. I wouldn't change it for the world.)

Part of me wonders what my life would have turned out like if I had been encouraged to follow any of my passions despite how much that career would make me. Would I have pursued more roles in the plays at school? Would I have tried for a music major or a theater major? Would I have pursued a communications major when I found that I really enjoyed my speech class? Would the difference in classed made me enjoy college more and made me stay? What would I be doing with my life now? Would I have found my niche? Would I have found the thing that really makes me think, "THIS! This is where I belong and what I was always meant to do!" Would I still struggle with "creative stir craziness"?

In no way am I discontent with my life now. I know God lead me here and here is where I am meant to be. And as I said before, I LOVE my job. I don't know of any other job I would want. (Other than one day being a mother, of course.) I just wonder sometimes.

I hope that you will follow your passion no matter what it is or where it leads. I hope that you will find your strengths and lean on them, see where they take you. I hope that you will not let the fear of needing a career that makes a lot of money take you away from pursuing what you love. God will always provide what you need when you need it. Don't be afraid to pursue your passion.

Find what you love and, most of the time, your job won't seem like work.

Never stop dreaming,

Elisabeth