I'd like to be my old self again : Why am I not passionate about anything anymore ?

Summer has finally arrived ! Now’s the time for pool parties, cocktails on the beach watching the sunset, and suntanning in your best friend’s backyard… or, for some of us, time to deal with the crippling anxiety regarding the impending year, to wonder what we want to do with our future, and basically worry about the rest of our lives. Exciting perspectives for the two upcoming months, yes ? 

This somewhat dramatic reflection has been inspired by the fact that I need to find an internship for the winter term of 2025, and that applying to companies has been a nightmare. Stalking all the overqualified applicants and the requirements for the job, I keep wondering : why am I not passionate about anything ? 

I think this question alone says a lot, and I know for a fact that some people can relate (I have often brought up the subject while discussing with friends). Today’s article is only a short thinkpiece, because a) my summer job is taking up most of my time and b) this topic is depressing enough not to want to ramble on and on about it – I think about it enough every day.

Scratching the surface 

As a child, I used to quit any and every activity my parents ever signed me up to after a year of practising. Ballet ? Didn’t last more than 10 months. Horse riding ? I quit after my parents had already paid for a semester. Violin ? Piano ? Anything that required discipline ? I was out of there before Christmas even arrived. I often wondered, these past few years, if my fleeting attention span was caused by my phone addiction, but I quickly remembered that I have always been this way. I just get bored very easily. The only things I felt passionate about were literature : I could spend hours reading and writing stories – and I did. 

And as hard as it is for me to admit this, I need to be great at everything I touch immediately. I have only recently come to terms with the fact that it is okay to be a beginner, and that it is not embarrassing to fail, as you are literally supposed to not know anything when you start something new. The feeling of novelty and of pure unknown is very uncomfortable, but we must learn to sit in it and embrace it in order to get better and improve. It is incredibly challenging to ask questions and admit you do not know everything, but it is so freeing that it is worth the feeling of shame. It is a lesson that I had to learn the hard way, but that I will never let myself forget.

Being cool for high school

Being a teen is like a corrida. People like to poke you to make fun of you, and whether you let it anger you or you let it slide, in the end, you will find you have lost some part of yourself either way. 

Middle school was not particularly traumatising for me, but it was actually because I willingly cut some parts of my identity to fit in. To sit with the cool kids, I had figured that you could not be as nerdy as I was, and admit that your favourite pastime was reading fantasy stories was a no-go. It was time to grow up and act like a real woman – no, 10 years old is not too early to do that, have you ever been a young girl ? Without even noticing it, I progressively gave up my hobbies, preferring whatever was trendy to the things I had been really passionate about. Until one morning, in high school, I woke up realising that I had not written a line in years, despite still telling every guidance counsellor that I was planning on being a writer. 

I felt as if I had been stripped away from my activities to fit in a mould, without, might I add, ever fitting in correctly. All my efforts had been for nothing. And after all these years, the people around me who did not care as much about so-called “popularity” had had the time to practise and excel into the hobbies they had started as kids and never let down. They bested me, and I was basically left with nothing that could testify that the old me had even existed. I did not even know who I was anymore. What did I like ? Could I still argue that I was a writer if I was not writing ? I had always had good grades and shone in class, but who was I outside of it ? When school would end and I would leave with my diploma under my arm, what would be left ? What could I tell when I introduced myself at parties ?

Into the lion’s den

As I entered a highly competitive class to prepare for the entrance exams to prestigious schools, I was faced with people who were deeply invested in everything philosophy and literature, and who proudly owned it. 

Like a goldfish who has never left its bowl and that is suddenly dropped in the ocean, I felt lost and confused. I felt so stupid to have abandoned my interests for so long, that my plan was instantly set in motion : I would find the little girl that still resonates in me and make her proud. 

And as of today, I multiply my activities outside of school, not to compete with all the extracurriculars and internships that my peers seem to be collecting, but to feel at peace with who I truly am, and finally be my authentic self. It is not embarrassing to do what you enjoy doing anymore. I learned that if you are good at something, whether people like what you are doing or not, they will be impressed, and above all, they will be happy for you and supportive of your projects. 

So, as Taylor Swift puts it, I’d like to be my old self again, but I am still trying to find it. Reconnecting the enthusiastic little girl I was and the grown woman I am becoming is no easy task. Being my old self again is certainly a goal, but really, it is the journey in itself that I am interested in. Figuring out how to adult without losing sight of yourself is what your twenties are all about, and in a way, this blog acts as a testimony of all these years of overthinking. It is proof of me finally overcoming my fears of being judged for doing what I like, and sharing more and more of my personality to the world.