I’m seventeen, but in some ways I think like a 35-year old. What happened to the option of wandering aimlessly for a period after graduation, to see where the inspiration takes me? I wonder, how in the last seven decades did it become crucial for a high school student to declare their passion?
Every counselor, elder and college entrance essay asks: “What are you passionate about?” When did it become outdated or insufficient to not yet have that realization? Isn’t that what the first thirty or 40 years (or more) of adult life will reveal to us? Honestly, how can we know this if we haven’t lived life yet?
It feels like I’m being groomed to brand myself and write my bio with a list of hobbies, achievements and goals. I’m not a commodity to be traded on the market and valued by comparison shoppers. We’re not in a race to get to the finish line. We’re only sixteen. We’ve only just arrived.
While I’m not advocating laziness or pedantry, I would like to dedicate some time for the joy that comes from self-discovery and creative exploration. Isn’t that part of what college should provide—new connections, possibilities and options for discovery?
So much of what I see is the push to turn a hobby or passion into a non-profit, initiative or career direction in conversations and applications. What happened to having a hobby for the sake of having a hobby?
There’s actually science behind my point: the teenage brain is designed for exploration, not specialization. This is the time in our biological development when we can still expand our capacity for neuroplasticity before our brains become refined and regulated for more efficiency. Yet, we are being forced to narrow our focus before we’ve finished enjoying the bliss of our youth.
On that note, the push to have us define ourselves into a specific identity is actually not as beneficial as planting seeds in a variety of fields and seeing which ones sprout. When we consider that the rapid evolution of AI may very likely automate many jobs and career sectors in the next five years or more, we would be foolish to pick one thing and put all our eggs in that basket.
Speaking from my 75-year-old perspective, I suggest that we juniors and seniors spend the last years of high school taking risks and trying ten different things. So what if six of them fail? That’s how we discover ourselves and uncover what we’re passionate about. That is how we become.
We are not just one identity, one brand or one choice. We can be multiple. Contrary to conventional opinion, that level of diversity is true strength. So, at this special time of my life, when asked what my passion is, I declare the right to be “undecided.”
