I feel like I’ve never been passionate enough about anything. I love exploring, learning, and writing… but to say that I can write extensively every day is but a dream I don’t have.

In college, I studied interdisciplinary fields, applicable to whatever career I chose to do. I didn’t study anything technical because I was neither skilled enough nor ready to commit to a narrowed path.

In these moments of doubt, I like to come back to Goodwill Hunting. The film is, essentially, about choosing your path of passion. The math professor devotes his life to advancing the field of math. The therapist devoted his early life to his wife. The friends are devoted to one another, well aware of their limited fortune in this world.

Then we have Will, who seems to have both the intellectual and romantic idealisms at the tip of his finger. He’s burdened by a past he can’t change, but with the help of the characters above, he breaks free from his past.

I grew up believing that I can have everything I set myself to achieve. A career and a family, my own yin and yang. But I failed to account that these achievements mean nothing to me without that fiery, intense emotion I deem passion.

My job and my hobbies are parts of my passion, but never the whole. I like to dabble here and there, commit to one or two things for a while—then start fresh when the circumstances change. 

I can’t shake the feeling that a life without passion is a life wasted. The best I can do is hover near the top, but never actually reach the peak. Where is this nagging feeling coming from? Why can’t I, like Will’s friends, recognize my limitations and live life as it was granted to me?

Maybe I have commitment issues. Maybe, like Will (without his prodigy), I am hindered by a past I have suppressed. Or maybe my passion hasn’t yet been awakened. Murakami didn’t start writing until he was 29. Or, just maybe, my passion is laying dormant in this life, and my fate is not to reach the top of the mountain.