The truth about following your passions

There’s a popular turn of phrase I’ve been hearing a lot of lately — follow your passions.

Ah, yes. Three beautiful, magical words.

Follow. Your. Passions.

That’s bullshit. Well, for me, anyway.

Here’s my truth — I stopped doing almost everything I was passionate about when I entered college. It wasn’t an accident, mind you, but a very firm, conscious decision to remove those things from my life.

At the time, I saw it as a necessary sacrifice — my career and academics HAD to come first, now. This was the big leagues! I couldn’t afford to have my time or attention leak elsewhere. Every minute of my day needed to be optimized for success. So I did what I thought I needed to do in order to achieve my goals, and I didn’t hesitate once.

Now, as a graduating senior, I have some regrets. Don’t get me wrong — I’m happy with where I am as a soon-to-be professional and a student. But giving up so much of what I once loved has worn on me, too. It hollowed me out a bit, in a way I can’t fully articulate or explain.

For example — prior to college, I was an avid artist. Sketching, painting, calligraphy, even installation art — I did it all. To me, my work was a rock in a stream of constant uncertainty, and it centered me like nothing else did. Friends were actually surprised to find out during my senior year of high school that no, I didn’t intend to go to art school. Not that I think I was ever meant for that — I never had the patience or creativity needed to do art professionally, and I have the utmost respect for those who do.

So yes, my path diverged from that possibility a while ago. I accepted that, long before I chose to give up art entirely in college. But it still hurts.

Now, I can’t even doodle for fun anymore, which is something I did a LOT of not so long ago. It’s like a part of me doesn’t want to know just how much my knowledge of human anatomy has degraded. And hey — you can’t find out if you never try, right? So I simply don’t.

Oddly enough, I still hoard arts and crafts supplies like nobody’s business. I have an entire box of paper and paints and glitter that I insist on carrying with me to school, semester after semester.

Here’s my dirty little secret — I haven’t ever actually opened it to do arts or crafts. Not once.

I even brought it to my apartment in New York City when I was working over the summer, thinking maybe I’d find time to do some art after work or on weekends.

It didn’t happen. Not once, over 10 weeks. And not for a lack of time, either.

That craft box I carry everywhere hangs on me like a dead weight — a reminder of what I want to do, but I am also absolutely terrified of returning to. It’s some deadly, bizarre cocktail of anxiety and perfectionism and crippling fear. A fear of finding out that I’m not as good as I used to be at something I once loved to do. That, by sacrificing something I was so passionate about, I might have actually lost it for good.

Yikes.

Now, that’s not to say everything I loved fell by the wayside when I started college. I still write, clearly. Writing was one of my first loves, and I consider it a miracle and a blessing both that I crossed paths with the folks from The Stute.

But every single time I pen a column, there’s an insidious voice in my head that tells me that I used to be a better writer: more fluid, cohesive, creative. That voice tells me that my skills have deteriorated beyond repair, and that writing this column isn’t worth any of the time I put in. High school me — an unapologetic nerd who won a departmental award for English, of all things — would probably laugh at my now-awkward sentences. At the way my brain fumbles around phrases with unease, the way it struggles to string words together in a way that’s articulate and direct, as it once used to.

Silencing that voice and writing for the past four years has been an exercise in mental fortitude, to say least. How do you shut off your brain when you’re the one who has to live with it, at all times? How do you silence harmful critiques when you’re your own biggest critic? Most of all, how do you reignite your passion for something you once chose to leave behind?

I don’t have all the answers. But baby steps might be just what I need.

Slowly but surely, I’m realizing that I need to allow myself to do the things I used to enjoy again. That I need not worry so much about how much my skills have fallen into disarray. Because that’s not why I did them in the first place.

There’s room in the world for ugly art, awkward sentences, less-than-perfect work. The beauty of creation lies in the act and the way it makes you feel — not the outcome.

So this weekend, I’m cracking open that damn craft box of mine. It’s scheduled on my calendar and everything. (Gasp!)

No matter what, I’m going to make something. Anything.

Because even if it’s wonky or ugly or weird — I made it. I’m passionate about it.

And that’s all that really matters.