When You Don't Have a Passion

 Once, I was in a college class and I overheard two boys discussing the show Survivor as we waited for our professor to show up.
As a fan of the show, I spoke up. "I'm a huge Survivor fan!" I interjected.
One guy turned toward me and said, "Well, who do you think is going to win this season?"
I hesitated. The season hadn't started yet. I didn't even know the contestants' names yet. "Well, I don't know yet. I'll sure I'll get a better sense after the first episode."
"If you haven't researched the cast, you're not that "huge" of a fan, are you?"
I sat silently as he proceeded to tell me about his weekly Survivor podcast, numerous auditions for the shows, and an actual Survivor contestant he had interviewed. 

I still think about that moment a lot. Before that precise moment, "Survivor fan" was a part of my identity. I think I even had a Survivor reference on my online dating profile at the time. Though I am fully aware now that that guy was an asshole, he was correct. In comparison, my fandom could not be considered "huge". I dedicated no time outside of show hours obsessing over the cast or challenges. I'd never even applied to be on, despite saying I wanted to. 

This has been a somewhat common trend throughout my life. I thought I liked journalism until I took a single journalism course and was even a tiny bit as excited as my classmates. I love watching sports, but can't even tell you who won the Super Bowl 5 years ago and fall behind in conversations with my dad and brother. I have always been an avid reader, but in an interview for a high school English teaching position, I was quizzed and told in no uncertain terms that I didn't have enough knowledge of literature to fit the position. I recently joined a trivia group in town and told them that I knew a lot about music and movies, but it turned out my knowledge was not deep enough and I couldn't answer a single question in either category. I like hiking, but I don't track my trails and set goals. I like baking, but I've never made anything to brag about. I feel fairly tech-savvy, but when my cousin talks about computers, it's like a different language. I'm a casual gamer, a mediocre bowler, a blog-once-a-month writer. 

I don't have a "passion."

At my current job, we have people called Subject Matter Experts. If we have a question about a specific product, we find the SME for that product and they will have the answer. I thought, Wow, wouldn't it be amazing to be the person that had the answers? What would I want to be an "expert" in? I can't think of anything. There's a river near where I grew up that was often described as "a mile wide and an inch deep." Recently, I've started to think of myself like that river. I love a lot of things. I'm curious. I'm inquisitive. I love to learn and I'm willing to try new things, but nothing in my life has ever really been my expertise. My interest only goes so deep.

Does this bother me? A little bit. I think we are told to follow our passions in life and realizing you don't have one is like going through life without a map. But sometimes it's when you're off the path that you discover the most beautiful things. Sometimes when you're not buried deep into something, you're free to run after a new opportunity. As J. R. R. Tolkien said, "Not all those who wander are lost." So I'll keep wandering.