He had no idea that I was watching him. He stood in the center of his room. Silent. Alone. His back was bent over at a slight angle. His tender, almost translucent hands cupped the iron club with a grip most people would use to hold a newborn baby. He softly tapped the white ball into the cup, followed with an exuberant whisper, “And he has done it! He has won the PGA Championship!” The sun streaming in from the west-side window of the narrow quarter illuminated the easily earned joy of the little boy. As I gazed through the gap of the wooden door, it seemed that even the inanimate objects surrounding him marveled at his excitement. All of a sudden, my face was stung with an air of realization. He had the one thing I didn’t have. He had the one thing I desired. He had found his passion.

I immediately scuffled down the hallway into my room and sat in my recently recovered denim lounge chair. My brain started to race through the history of my life, searching for the one thing that would amount to the level of passion the little boy acquired. “Hhmm… lets think,” I whispered out loud, as if someone with all the answers was sitting in a matching denim lounge chair right next to me. Right then I decided to make a list- a list of my interests and accomplishments that put most high school students to shame. Key Club, FCA, and Rotary, just to name a few. Nothing. Sure, these were notable accomplishments, but I didn’t feel the fiery, burning passion the little boy was overwhelmed with everyday of his life. I was determined to find it. It being the answer that would complete the universal question, “Who am I?”


I went to school the next day, observing each miniscule puzzle piece of my everyday life. My teachers, friends, classes, clubs, sports- everything that was most important to me, or so I thought. I started to question my life in this brown brick microcosm they called our future. I loved to learn new ideas and concepts, but was I actually passionate about learning? I wasn’t so sure. As the short and long hands twirled around the bold black numbers above my classroom door, I thought long and hard about the word passion and what it meant to me. It was a word that did not have a concrete definition, but a word that could only be felt. This I was soon to find out.

When I came back from school that same day, I saw the little boy once again. He was outside playing with his dog on the front lawn. It was a beautiful autumn day; the little boy’s cheeks were painted the same bright, crimson color of the leaves above him. As I watched him, he exuded the same amount of joy with the dog as he did the day before. My face stung once again, but not for the same previous reason. It now stung with the realization that maybe it wasn’t about finding one, solitary passion. It was the idea that I needed to be passionate everyday of my life.

I was using my brain like every other time in my life. This was a time I needed to use my heart. I found that passion was the wind that propelled the vessel of life, and I was the one steering it. In that one, solitary moment, when the little boy thought he was alone in his room, was all the inspiration I needed. Everyday since then, this little boy continues to inspire and remind me that life without passion is no life at all. This little boy is my brother.