Thursday, 14 May 2009

• Passion

    The early part of my life was marked by apathy. I'm not sure if it was some kind of defense mechanism that I had built in order not to be affected by the occurrences in my life at the time, but it was difficult for me to feel motivated. This ennui encompassed all aspects of my life, sort of a paralysis of indecision and lack of motivation. To feel was to want, and to want was to hope, and to hope was to be disappointed or to disappoint. The authority figures in my life expected a great deal from me-- parents and teachers-- but I was never able to deliver to their expectations. As an adult who once tutored me put it, "he's a high powered race car without any gas."
   
    It wasn't for any lack of effort either. I desperately wanted to be like other children-- to be great at sports, martial arts, or academics. However, try as I might to conjure it I had no real desire to excel in those areas. What I wanted to do, simply, was to be left in peace and do the two things that I loved: reading and drawing. Sadly, there was no one around to encourage these interests of mine despite my precocious talent in those pursuits. Everyone wanted me to be a math champion, concert violinist, or the next Michael Chang (Asian tennis god). Thus the only two things I had a passion for-- art, and a thirst for knowledge acquired through reading-- were dismissed as cute past-times that would eventually lead nowhere. It only served to intensify my escapism and discourage me from trying to live up to everyone's expectations. My parents were quite concerned that I would never develop any ambition or drive.
  
    "Don't you want to be the best?" my father would ask me.
    "What's the point? To make other people feel bad?" I would reply, because I associated being compared with others with feeling bad.
  
    While other children were competing in academic decathlons and national spelling competitions, I was blissfully absorbed in my novels and comic books. Later it would become computer games; thereafter, popularity, girls, bad friends, and eventually, drugs.
  
    This pattern continued until adulthood.
  
    One day, when I was eighteen, I awoke from the daze I had been in and I asked myself if I had truly accomplished anything in my life. I realized, that if I was honest the answer was no. No, I had not accomplished a single thing I could be proud of in my 18 years on the planet. I had left in my wake, a string of failures, disappointments, misjudgments, and abandoned dreams. I finally resolved to make my life count for something. From that moment onward, I developed an intense desire to make up for lost time. Initially, I pursued every goal with voracious intensity determined to succeed at all costs. And so I did. But I could never fully commit myself to a  given direction. Cracks in my resolve began to appear once any sense of discouragement set in.
  
    There was finally gasoline in the race car, I went further and faster than all my competitors, but I couldn't finish the race. I would get to the final lap and burn out. Ambition and drive weren't enough to keep me going indefinitely, and stave off the clutches of indecision. There was still something missing.
  
    Passion.
  
    The missing ingredient was passion. Years later, I finally found my passion and it has made all the difference. Without passion the race has no end. The fuel is finite, and there is no joy in victory. With passion I persist, and although adversity may strike, my objective is clear-- the prize is tangible. It's passion that sees me through the darkest valleys of life's journey. It is passion that lifts me from my haunches when success seems uncertain. When confused-ness overwhelms me, and the path is unclear I continue forward because I know that every fiber of my being propels me towards my goal. It becomes irresistible. Irrefutable.
  
  I am the only thing standing in my way.
  
   
  I just needed to find what I wanted. I found it.
  

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