What is your passion? I think I found mine.

I remember being asked by my former manager during one of our check-ins: “What is your passion?”. It sounded like a simple question but I thought about it for a while. We were given the questions beforehand for us to reflect before answering. I found myself searching for an answer that felt honest and complete. I started asking myself a deeper question “What makes me feel fulfilled?”

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Then I recalled the feeling I had after conducting a 3-hour learning session on Root Cause Analysis, when they submitted their output then approached and thanked me because they understood now. I realized that the feeling of fulfilment and joy was what I felt that time. And I want to feel the same thing every time. Who does not want to feel fulfilled?

Today, I felt a familiar feeling while teaching a team leader how to do something in our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). She said in Bislama “mi mekem hariap naya from mi save naya (I’m fast now because I already know)” with a big grin on her face. And then proceeded to tell me “tankiu auntie yu lanem ni gud. (Thank you Auntie, you taught me well)”. I though this is why I do what I do, I always make sure that what I know I share because your light is not dimmed when you light up others.

It’s not only because of the feeling of fulfillment, it’s more on my passion of teaching others and feeling joyful on being able to share some knowledge and helping other improve. It’s a bonus when you receive a ‘thank you’.

I guess I got it from my parents who are both teachers. So even if I’m in a different field, I teach in my own little ways. Maybe it runs in the blood or maybe because we were raised this way.

My parents who are both in the Social Sciences field, always exposed us to their work and taught us everything they know even when we were still young. When I was 7, she brought me to an island in Bohol because she was doing a research on the livelihood involving seashells (I think? I can’t remember). I listened how she asks questions and probes to get more qualitative data — yes I learned qualitative research when I was 7. There are many more research adventures with my mom but that’s for another time.

As I was writing this, the more I reflected, the more I realized that passion isn’t always something obvious or grand — it can live in the small moments, the things that energize you without effort, and the activities that make time seem to disappear.

I’ve realized that my passion is teaching, not necessarily in a formal setting, but in sharing knowledge and insights with others whenever I can.

How about you, what is your passion?

END.

memento vivere