Purpose & Passion in a World of Single-Purpose

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"What's your five-year plan?"

Questions we've all been asked at least once in life. Some of us have had the answers, and some of our answers may have changed. But others have no answer at all. There are two reasons for this. The first being, said person doesn't know what they want, they feel lost. Wandering on a never-ending trail with no postage of where to head next. The second, possibly worse reason, is that said person knows what they want. But they want too many things to the point that they don't know what they want.

The first person can very likely be saved. They can try new things, put themselves out there to find purpose, to find something they love. The second person is much harder to save. They love too many things. They have interests that don't connect, which easily become too many things to juggle, as if they're the man at the circus trying to toss around bowling pins without dropping one while balancing on a beach ball with only one foot.

This world was built for people with a singular purpose. Or so they say. Everyone is supposed to go to school, pick a group to associate themself with, graduate, and get a singular career that they're expected to keep until the day they die, get married, and have kids to take care of them when they get old and gray. But this mold isn't built to make everyone happy. Life is not exact, so what happens when someone longs for something outside of this societal mold, something more?

It must be noted that this mold does not stop the second person from longing for something outside of the expected life. It leads to drowning in it all. The drowning doesn't happen all at once, like jumping off a boat into the deep, dark end of the ocean. This is a slow, gradual drowning, like inhaling drops of water one by one while they slowly fill one's lungs, sloshing around with each added drop. Interests aren't gained all at once; it happens over weeks, months, maybe even years. That's the scary thing for the second person: they don't intend to gain all of these passions, and they don't notice how heavy it weighs on them until it's too late.