I have met many students who are still asking themselves what "the reason" is, why does it seem so difficult to pick what they want to do? The feeling of being passionate unfortunately doesn’t hit us all at the same time and for some, the concept of being on "a mission" is hard to grasp.

In order to become passionate about anything, one must first have a vision of something that is not quite in the world yet. Once they start trying to find a way to close the space separating the dream from reality, they have found passion. After this self-discovery has been made, the concept of money no longer seems to be the most important thing anymore.

The saying that "money isn’t everything" is a hard topic to debate because we live in such a materialistic society. The common belief that the more resources we have the happier and more powerful we are makes sense if you value luxury. More than ever, we are judged according to the things we have and how much money we make. When you think about it, it only brings joy to a certain extent.

Most college students argue that by the time they retire they will have enough money to travel wherever they please. At first that sounded nice, but after giving it some thought, I do not know if I would ever want to retire from my dream career. If our generation hadn’t been brought up to believe that money can resolve all our problems and give us everything that we need, I think more people would follow their dreams regardless of how much money they make. Business motivational speaker Harvey MacKay once said "Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life."

What if an accountant had everything he wanted materialistically, but had always wanted to become an astronaut? Our society would still see him as being a successful man, but would he consider himself a success? Money itself cannot buy success. It cannot buy happiness, health, talent, peace and it especially cannot buy love.

Socrates made an analogy and called the part of the mind that controls people’s desires a ‘jar.’ According to him, fools have a cracked jar, making their minds leaky. They constantly keep filling up their jar with what they desire, while those who finally fill their jar once get the satisfaction of reaching their goal. They never have to think about the jar again. Some people say these people aren’t truly happy because once the jar is filled, they can no longer feel pleasure.

I associate cracked jars with the people who are never fully satisfied with what they already have. The people who constantly have to have something more. These people’s standards are continuously getting higher, sometimes faster than it takes for someone to appreciate the last thing they got. It’s a sad thing.

On the brighter side of things, I am glad the world is such a diverse place and am thankful for the large diversity of people it’s filled with. Every job is needed in some way or another; I’m just saying that it is important to do what you are passionate about, regardless of how big the paycheck is. In the end unless your whole heart and soul are behind every choice and decision made, each step forward will be nothing but an illusion.