Creative Commons Photo by Lauren Hammond
There was a time when I was driven by passion to start a movement. It felt amazing to be consumed by this passion, like the very bones in my body were held together not by ligaments, but by purpose, intention, and a fuel to compel me forward. My heart was always dancing with excitement, my chest heaving with the thrill of the present moment. I loved it all; it felt like I was doing something right.
But then, I met resistance.
People told me I was wrong. They told me I shouldn’t mess things up. They told me this was only a naïve passion speaking, not anything of truth.
And then, I was bruised, beaten, and battered, licking my wounds in the corner, struggling to get back up. What happened to the passion that excited me? What happened to my fervor?
In that time, there was an odd thing I noticed about passion: it’s treated differently across generations. For instance, the older adult would sometimes ridicule the overly passionate teenager chasing what they love, because it’s not realistic to be that visionary. And then, the younger person would look at the adults and ridicule their lack of passion, saying they’re just living in comfort and contentment.
This was how it was for me. The adults would come by and tell me I was wrong, and the younger people would tell me to go for it. I didn’t know who to listen to.
I was caught in the awkward gap of the twenties.
This is why your twenties can be a confusing time. You have this passion, this desire to make a difference, but you’re caught in the middle between a comfortable adulthood and a vibrant youth.
As you get older, you would find adults telling you to settle into a real job, to provide a living instead of chase a dream, and there’s nothing wrong with that, except this isn’t handling passion in the right way.
I’m still in my twenties, and I’m still chasing what I love, because in that time when I was beaten for chasing my dream, I learned a valuable lesson about passion:
You must hold on to it. Never give it up.
Let it evolve, grow, and mature alongside side you, but never listen to the person who tells you to abandon it as you get older. And then, on the other side of things, don’t let it stay innocent and lazy, stuck in the bubble of youth without embracing the real world.
In your twenties, don’t let passion and dreams fade. Nurture it, so by the time you hit your thirties, something beautiful can come out of it.
We are meant to encourage and cultivate passion. This is a truth I’m holding onto, and it’s making my twenties significantly better.