The demand for a single defining interest is narrowing a generation before it has even begun to grow.
High schoolers today are not simply encouraged to have interests, they are asked to have a direction. A theme. A through-line. A perfectly distilled identity that can be summarized in one sentence on an application or in a 30-second introduction at a summer program.
The question, “What are you passionate about?” is no longer small talk. It’s a test. The correct answer is supposed to be instant, articulate, unwavering. Something that sounds both personally meaningful and resume-appropriate. Something that proves a teenager already knows exactly who they are and where they are going.
But passion, historically, has never been something discovered under pressure.
It evolves. It shifts. It requires time and boredom and curiosity. It needs space for wandering.
Yet the modern education system treats wandering as inefficiency.
Students are encouraged to specialize early: the “future doctor” takes three science electives; the “future journalist” stacks leadership roles; the “future engineer” joins robotics in ninth grade and never looks back. The narrative has to be linear — something admissions readers can follow easily.
And the result is identity compression.
Instead of exploring widely, many teenagers learn to narrow themselves. Interests are chosen not only for enjoyment but for strategy. A hobby becomes a “spike.” A class becomes a “brand.” A curiosity becomes a commitment, sometimes long before it actually feels true.
Psychologists have a term for this: identity foreclosure. It describes the moment someone commits to an identity before exploring alternatives. It is common in high-pressure environments such as in families, schools or communities where certainty is rewarded and uncertainty is seen as immaturity.
What often gets lost in this rush toward definition is openness, the ability to change one’s mind, to experiment with interests, to fail and try again.
These are foundational parts of growth. They are how people discover what feels meaningful, not just marketable.
But wandering does not photograph well. It cannot be bullet-pointed. It does not translate smoothly into a college essay.
So exploration is quietly discouraged.
This culture of early specialization also misunderstands what passion actually is. Real passion isn’t a single burning interest that appears in adolescence fully formed. It is an accumulation of experiences, influences, conversations, mentors, environments and quiet fascinations. It develops from exposure, not certainty.
To insist that teenagers declare a singular defining passion is to misunderstand adolescence itself.
The teenage years are inherently transitional. They are meant to be full of unfinished thoughts, shifting identities, and experiments that lead nowhere in particular. That is not wasteful. That is formative.
But the system rewards the kid with a polished narrative over the kid with genuine curiosity. It rewards confidence over exploration. Predictability over becoming.
And that has consequences.
Students begin to fear trying something new if it does not fit the version of themselves they have already committed to. They become cautious about changing direction. They worry that curiosity looks like confusion.
A generation raised to be impressive risks forgetting how to be interested.
Perhaps the better question — the one that actually honors growth — is not “What is your passion?” but “What are you paying attention to right now?”
Attention can shift. And that’s the point. Passion is not discovered in a single moment; it is assembled over time.
Teenagers deserve the room to fail, get back up, and try again.
