My eyes are closed, but my mind is not. The standard red of the clock burns my eyes as I read off the time. It’s just after 3AM and I should be asleep. ‘Should be’ is the key word, but as I lay here with my racing thoughts, I realize ‘should be’ clearly lives on its own terms. It’s not that anything is particularly wrong; it’s just that something could possibly be wrong. My thoughts echo the words I could not possibly explain out loud. What does it mean to actually be good at something? Am I actually good at what I think I am good at? Is there something else I have yet to explore that I could potentially excel in? These words continue to echo in my mind as I roll over to my side.
I know everyone has a passion whether it’s big or small. I know and I respect that part in all of us. However, I cannot help but wonder if there was something else we should have tried. Maybe there is one thing that each individual should have tried, but never did. What if one of us could have been the greatest inventor, designer, writer, director, musician, athlete, etc, but we never knew because we never actually tried? What if we had potential to be ranked among the greats, but we were too afraid to find out? I want to try, I do. But with so many options, where does one start?
Growing up, I was the type of girl who rushed through my homework so that I could read my latest passion: Junie B. Jones, Magic Tree House, The Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, Anne of Green Gables, Tuck Everlasting, and many more. My mother would literally have to pry me off my books so I would eat dinner. “Just one more chapter,” I’d beg, “just one more.” Since then, not much has changed. All throughout middle school and high school, I continued to read and I even started to write. I would never want to change that. But does that mean I should never change that?
I played soccer and did dance for a while. Maybe I should have followed that. I could have possibly been the best soccer player or the best athlete to date. Maybe I could have been the World’s Greatest Pianist, the World’s Greatest Chemist, or the World’s Greatest Thinker. There are so many possibilities that could have evolved to some other greatness, but it is possible that I could never know. Maybe that is the point. Maybe I was never meant to know any of these things.
There is beauty in being passionate about something. There is beauty in never knowing all of the world’s potential. However, I would like to think that one’s actual happiness is worth more than one’s potential greatness. Nothing makes me as happy as when I get a new book or when I write my next piece. At this point, my eyes are shut. I may not be quite as content as I would like to be about this, but I feel content enough to be okay with the path I have chosen. I hope you are too.