THE crucial part of growing up is choosing between your passion or to be practical. Not everyone has the means to choose what they want to do in life and be back on track if the one you chose first didn’t quite work out. For some of us, it is a huge thing to succeed and to not be provided the room for failure. As we continue to age, we are taught to dream big. So it’s either we want to do a lot of things all at once or have this one big goal we really want to pursue. But nobody talks about what if you still don’t know what your dream is in life? 

Don’t get me wrong, it is perfectly fine if up until now, you still don’t know what you want to do. Our hobbies are some of the factors that shape our mindset to reach that one goal that could either make or break you. In the meantime, let’s break down the difference between passion and practicality. In the simplest way you can define passion, it is where you have the intense excitement and keenness in doing what you do, while practicality is when you need to take a reality check and choose the realistic approach rather than being impractical. 

Being idealistic is not bad as it seems, but there are people who need to be more realistic because life is hard and you need to be practical when choosing what you want to do. From the countless articles I read as I was choosing which strand I should take for senior high school, here’s my takeaway: although passion will keep us in the momentum in the long run, having that sense of practicality will be the one to support you. 

The hard hitting truth is, as we gain more experiences and a lot of hardships along the way, there will be doubts whether or not you chose the right path to be practical or the path of following where your passion is. Even thoughts of nothingness and being burned out can lead you to question if what you chose is right for you as it doesn’t give you the purpose anymore. We should remember that there will be a constant change in our lives. With this, it is important to embrace aforementioned changes and be reminded that we are once again given the chance to improve and evolve.