If the video is anything to go by what I am most passionate about is not getting hurt which is certainly true, however I believe the real question to me when I started thinking about this assignment was “What is passion?”

Passion is a loaded word that covers both good and evil. We see people who are passionate about causes they support and we see people commit crimes of passion. Therefore passion, to me, represents a powerful driving force. Whether we use it to build or destroy is entirely our own individual responsibility. I also strongly believe that passion is mutable, it can shift and change over time but it will always be that powerful flame within us that drives us to excel at our chosen tasks.

So after answering those questions, at least to my own satisfaction, I needed to seriously ponder what career my passion would drive me to pursue.

I’ve lived in a lot of different places, studied a lot of different things and wanted to do a lot of different jobs. I studied Law, Psychology and English Language when I was at Varndean and I was really passionate about each of those subjects so when it came to University I tried to pick a degree that would allow me, in its own way, to pursue those options. I wanted to be a lawyer, a psychologist and a writer all at the same time so it was clear to me that I’d need more time before making a serious decision on my future career.

Fast forward two and a half years and here I am, still trying to decide what I want to do with my life with only one year of university left. Thankfully a lot has happened in those two years to help shape my life and give me some direction to follow. The simple answer now is that I want to be a writer.

Writing to me represents the art of language, whether in songs, poetry or even stories. I certainly find that I am better at expressing myself in written language and I find writing sincere prose to be easier than public speaking. I also have a very active imagination and writing allows me to tap into it and express it in ways that mere spoken word could never do justice. I also really believe that writing is the most honest and open way of communication I know. It isn’t easy to put your most personal thoughts into words and share them with others but the fact you do gives weight to anything you say.

Whether it’s writing my own books or for a small newspaper is not the concern for me, the point is to be doing something that I really love and managing to turn it into a career that I can make a living out of. I have no illusions about the difficulty of this and I am willing to take on extra classes, do post-graduate studies and work as an un-paid intern all for the chance to make this happen. It’ll be a long and difficult journey but that’s usually the case when you set out to achieve something worthwhile.

This kind of undertaking also isn’t possible without friends and family. They are the ones who you trust to be ruthless with the red pen as they look through your work and highlight what works and what doesn’t work. Sometimes their criticism can hurt and learning to take it on board is hard but if you’re too afraid to show your work to the people close to you then it will be even tougher to show to the whole world.

Of course success isn’t guaranteed either, the publishing market can be fickle and so is inspiration. Thus we see the darker side of passion, you want desperately to be a writer but you aren’t published or you cannot seem to find the words to express yourself. This is a risk that cannot be idly discarded but you cannot let it paralyse you either. I know the likelihood of being a successful author is slim but I will still give it my best shot.

Also, just because I am always honest with you guys, I do my own stunts and they hurt.